


Today, The All Blue Died.

by nauticaas



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:42:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticaas/pseuds/nauticaas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanji never realized that he had the power to destroy the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shattered

 

Gin feels something like lead in his chest, along his arteries and airways, lacing his heart until it stops, and falling heavily at the bottom of his lungs. His crewmates have backed off now, and he knows that somewhere close by, his captain has a smug, vicious smile on his face, gauging his reaction...waiting to see what he will do.

What  _can_  he do?

The cook is still as he approaches, all lanky, stiff limbs and tattered clothes, and he is wearing a calm, resigned expression on his pale, bruised face. Blood makes his eyes look bluer than he's ever seen before, like an impossible ocean, and it trickles in red streams down into the hollow at his neck. His cigarette is gone.

He doesn't realize that he's crying again until the world spins into an ugly, blurred mess, and then he falls to his knees before Sanji with a howl. Immediately he stiffens, because there is no way that noise was human, and then he laughs bitterly in his head and reminds himself  _oh, but you aren't human, remember?_  His crew is probably terrified, sick with fear and worry, but Gin doesn't care anymore. He doesn't think he can consider them his crew anymore, not after everything that has happened, and if they can't understand what he feels then they were never really comrades anyway.

His eyes meet the cook's, and he wonders why their paths even crossed.

Sanji, this man whose food should have been served before kings and gods, not third rate marine brats that had just had their first rank and boat purchased by daddy dearest, who had compassion and kindness for even monsters and demons, even when he knew that mercy would not be returned, who would never turn away a wretched, hungry being like Gin.

They should never have met.

Gin remembers their onlookers and closes his eyes to the audience, knowing that if he is to die today, it will be on his own terms, even if it means turning against the only man he has ever respected.

Tears stream down his cheeks as he makes his choice, and then he addresses the audience before him, former crew, captain, and all of the Baratie's cooks.

"We've killed a good man."

The stillness shatters in a murmur of disbelief and shock, and Gin holds Sanji's cold, lifeless hand in his own.

There is nothing left to do now.

 

* * *

 

Krieg smirks at his former battle commander and raises his spear one final time; he's had enough of this damned restaurant and its shit-cooks. It's time to end this.

The blinding crackle of lightning splits the world in half for a moment, and then Krieg hears the resounding boom that ends his reign. Moans of a dying multitude fill the waters around him, and through sheer willpower he manages to raise his head long enough to see the tip of a long, gleaming blade pointed at him. He grins, or grimaces but that probably doesn't matter anymore, and Dracule Mihawk cleaves right through him without a single word.

His broken throne crumbles.

 

* * *

 

Gin stares in horror at the mass death before him, and then he realizes that he is still alive, even after all of this. He looks to Mihawk for answers, but the man has already turned away to leave, as silent and incomprehensible as the last time.

"W-why-?"

The swordsman pauses, sheathing his blade with a moment of deliberation before he glances over his shoulder at him. Gin feels a shudder run down his spine; the man's eyes glow bright underneath the brim of his hat as they consider him.

"You should take him back to his family."

And then he strides towards his own boat, casting a long, sweeping look at the boats on the horizon. Marines, pirates, and other ships too scared to come any closer to the chaos and death surrounding the ship restaurant.

It won't be long before they come, though. Fear can only do so much.

He gathers Sanji up in his arms and stands on legs that he is afraid won't hold him up anymore, but they do, and he begins to walk across the broken pieces of the Baratie's fins and what remains of Krieg's proud fleet. Though most of his crewmates are already dead, some seem to have been spared in Mihawk's destruction and they call out to him ( _him_ , of all people). But Gin has had a lifetime of turning a deaf ear to cries for mercy, and there is no sympathy left in him, not for them. He easily steps past them without any hesitation.

(He thinks he has lost the ability to feel until now.)

Sanji's head rests comfortably against his chest, and for the first time in his life Gin learns what a broken heart feels like.

 

* * *

 

Zeff watches in a catatonic daze, and for several long, terrifying moments Patty and Carne think they've lost him as well, but then the demon Krieg pirate carries Sanji back to them and he shudders.

"S-sir-!"

He shoves them away and  _drags_  himself across the broken floorboards, face white and expressionless. Patty tries to stop him, but Carne just turns his face away, barely holding back his tears.

_"Don't."_

Oh  _God_ , how could this have happened?

 

* * *

 

This young man looks so much like Sanji and yet nothing like him. He looks at Zeff with the placid, quiet air of someone with none of his temperament and with so much peace. He wants to shake the boy until he comes back so he can yell at him to stop looking so goddamned serene,  _what the hell, this is not like you, Baby E-_

He's so cold.

The Krieg pirate has put him down on the edge of Baratie's broken threshold and steps back, lowering his eyes respectfully to the cooks' mourning. He glances back at Dracule Mihawk's boat as he holds the approaching ships at bay, but right now Zeff doesn't care about Krieg's men or Mihawk or any of the Marines and pirates heading their way because his Baby Eggplant is  _cold_.

His hands tremble as he touches Sanji's cold, stiff hands (one of them is mangled, and he'd  _murder_  the piece-of-shit-pirate who did this if he didn't suspect the bastard was already dead), and slowly, pushing back the silent horror that is steadily welling up inside of him, he straightens his shirt and tie and begins the painful process of buttoning it all up. Damn kid, he always wore too many useless, tiny buttons on these things.

Some of them are missing, and he realizes that they are probably scattered somewhere in the wreckage, or in the sea. It bothers him more than it should.

Zeff tugs his necktie off and mops away some of the blood on his face, trying to make him look a little more presentable, because he has always prided himself on his looks, vain, cocky little brat that he is. He only succeeds in smearing it further, staining his cheeks a dark, purple-red color.

Eggplant.

The others have gathered around them now, waiting for an order, a request, _something_ from him that he doesn't know if he can give anymore. His heart is beating too fast and he is afraid to look away from Sanji; he doesn't know if he can keep himself composed if he does.

A dark heavy cloak enters his vision, and Mihawk kneels beside him silently. Zeff doesn't raise his eyes. Almost hesitantly, the swordsman reaches towards Sanji and rests his hand over his face.

"May I?"

He never was and never will be ready for this, but the cook nods anyway. When his hand withdraws, Sanji's eyes are closed, and he looks so much like he's asleep that Zeff almost,  _almost_  tries to shake him awake.

But he can't.

Anger fills him up and he hopes that it will swallow up the grief so that he never has to feel it again. This is wrong, this is unnatural, this isn't  _fair_. The little brat was supposed to outlive him, not the other way around. He was supposed to live and be happy and follow his dreams. He was supposed to find _the ocean of dreams._

He still looks like he's sleeping, so Zeff tucks an arm under his shoulders and draws him close; the floor is hard and unforgiving and he'll wake up cold and stiff, and he should really find him a blanket or something. After all he has been through, he deserves a little bit of comfort.

'Don't be scared, Baby Eggplant,' he said before in a half-remembered life. 'I'll keep you safe and warm.'

Sanji is so quiet and cold that it scares him senseless. He cradles him to his chest because his own body heat will have to do for now, but then he realizes that this will be the last time he can do this.

His world shatters.


	2. Spectators to a Tragedy

The Marines sweep across the waters in grim silence, collecting the bodies of the East's feared Krieg pirates from the wreckage. Those few that are still breathing are taken into custody; if they don't die in the medical wing then they will likely face a long stint in prison. Compared to dying out on the ocean, a prison sentence will be a mercy to them. All the non-government ships have been turned away, though some of the pirates have stayed to watch the retrieval. As long as they stay out of the way, the Marines won't bother with them. None have a bounty high enough to make these pirates worth their while, not when the bodies of Krieg's men are worth millions together, even dead.

This will come to be known as Mihawk's Massacre in the history books, but for now they just call it a shitstorm. Cleanup of this area will take weeks, and they probably will not recover all the bloating corpses from the water.

The only place they have not approached is the Baratie, and the restaurant sits in an eerie stillness on the ocean.

Mihawk has retreated to the Baratie's door, and he stands guard in silence, his piercing golden gaze enough to deter any bolder pirates or Marines. They don't know why he is protecting the place, but no one wants to find out either.

That is, until one ship enters the area brazenly, an unidentified Jolly Roger spread across her sails.

Smoker narrows his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Gin looks up at the two new ships on the Baratie's port side. One is a full-rigged Marine ship, and it cuts the smaller boat off before the little caravel can reach the restaurant. He recognizes the Marine captain from earlier run-ins; the last time he saw Smoker, the officer had given the order to pursue him after Krieg's flag ship had returned from the Grand Line.

They will execute him by dawn, he realizes as they approach, and as he moves to stand, numb and calm about his impending death, the cook who once denied him food shoves him back down next to Zeff and tosses his outer shirt over Gin's head. Patty scowls at his look of utter bewilderment.

_"He saved your life; the least you could do is not get caught."_

Smoker barks a warning to the presumed pirate ship, and the boy in the straw hat who claims to be captain of his crew frowns sullenly but otherwise obeys orders to pull off to the stern, giving the Marine Barque room to weigh anchor. Smoker disembarks with a group of his ensigns and tries to make sense of the situation, asking many questions and receiving dreadfully few answers. They overlook Gin, and he hunches his shoulders warily under Patty's uniform while the interrogation goes on.

The cooks try, of course, but with Zeff still sitting like a silent statue on the deck with Sanji clutched in his arms, it's hard to find the words to describe what has just happened.

(How do you begin to explain the great tragedy of a short life?)

Swallowing back tears, Carne painfully recounts the story, with some help from the others when his voice falters at the end. The Marines take down the shortened version of the tale, asking if they have any idea how many men they witnessed fall in battle. Did they see any other of Krieg's ships that might have survived the disaster? Where was the Don's body?

The cooks look back at the Marines wearily, all of the questions falling on deaf ears. Couldn't they just be left alone to grieve?

Mihawk gives them the statistics they are looking for (eighty-nine dead, twelve survivors, last time he scanned the waters; he wouldn't be surprised if some of them had just died right now) and nods at the bisected corpse propped up on one of the pieces of floating shipwreck, telling them that he made sure Krieg's fleet would never rise again.

"Is that all, gentlemen?"

The Marines give a murmur of horror at the sight of Don Krieg's halves lying on the slab of wood. From the caravel on the stern side, an entire crew blanches and a swordsman leans forward in morbid interest, eying Mihawk with a gaze filled with wonderment and determination. Gin thinks that there is a dangerous man if he ever saw one. He hopes that he stays away from them.

"Are there any injured over here?" Smoker asks, averting everyone's attention from the gruesome sight.

 _Nothing we can't handle,_ they say weakly, _we'll be fine_. Looking around at the grief-stricken cooks, Gin thinks about how far from the truth that is. Patty is staring at Mihawk as though he is considering begging for the man to kill them all out of mercy.

"Injuries we can handle," Carne finally croaks, and Patty grabs his arm in support; he probably doesn't realize that he was swaying on his feet. "Thank you for your concern, Captain."

"Is that a casualty?" One of Smoker's men says bluntly, and Carne looks as grey as seastone.

The Marines share a look when Carne confirms it, and Gin feels sick to his stomach when Smoker's officers compare their one loss to the Krieg Pirates' death toll, and out loud they admire the Baratie's luck.

"Not bad for a bunch of cooks against the Krieg's army, even if Hawk-eyes had his fun with them first."

The straw hat boy yells at them for belittling the cooks. "Don't you dare disrespect their struggle and their loss, you bastard! That man was a special person to them!"

The cooks look up at the livid, red-faced boy in shock, and tears begin to roll down their cheeks unbidden. Gin watches with a tired gaze and wonders why the sight of that boy makes him feel a little less heavy.

The Marine who spoke is unimpressed. "Serves them right for collaborating with pirates; this place has always been a magnet for troublemakers. Besides, what's one measly kid compared to the chance to live another day? You should be grateful it was just him and not this whole blasted shithole."

Smoker looks at the ensign officer like he cannot believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. Straw hat boy's crewmates are barely able to hold him back. Before Gin can even think of shoving his iron tonfas through the man's skull, Mihawk stands up from his place at Zeff's side and fixes a dangerous look on the Marine, who reflexively takes a step back in retreat.

"If you're done with your investigation, I suggest you leave now."

The man sputters. "You can't expect us to feel sorry for a shitty cook. I heard he was a pirate sympathizer, too. Snuck food to criminals just because they were 'hungry', and neglected real,  _paying_  customers. You saw the number he pulled on Fullbody last week."

"You're right; he was just another damned brat."

Zeff's careful, almost loving manner of handling Sanji's body contradicts his harsh words, and he cradles the boy's head as he lays him out on the deck before he struggles to his feet (one of the cooks rushes to help him), and they watch him hobble toward the open doors of the restaurant, leaning heavily on his cook's shoulder. He pauses at the entrance and glances over his shoulder at the Marines.

"I trust you'll see yourselves out, officers."

The Marine ensign smiles haughtily. "Good riddance to that little hooligan, huh?"

Smoker turns around and calmly slugs his co-officer across the face, and the bastard topples into the water. It gives Gin a little bit of satisfaction to hear the sound of bone crunching before the loud splash.

"We'll take our leave," the Marine captain says apologetically, looking uncomfortable with the situation. Zeff just nods and heads into the Baratie without another word. Gin wants to stand and go after him, but he can't risk getting caught right now and there's no way he can just leave Sanji abandoned out here. Zeff's state is concerning, though; when he glances out at the entire gathering before leaving, he is wearing the look of a man who has lost everything.


	3. The Vigil

Johnny and Yosaku stand between the two swordsmen nervously, trembling and panting even as their eyes warn Zoro to stand down. As soon as the Marines left, their friend had leapt down from the Going Merry and headed straight for Dracule Mihawk with a keen frown on his face, and they are worried that this was going to end up as another bloodbath.

"Bounty hunters?" Mihawk eyes the trio indifferently. "Or challengers, judging by your swords? I'm not interested,  _boys_."

"It doesn't have to be here," Zoro mutters, shrugging off Usopp's and Nami's grasping hands on his shoulders. "We could head out to-"

"No."

They understand his frustration, they really do. His dream is seemingly only a few footsteps away, but Zoro doesn't seem to realize that right now he couldn't possibly be further from reaching his goals. After what they have seen Mihawk wrought on the Krieg pirates, they know he cannot face him now and live.

Seeing the look of disappointment and anger on his face, the swordsman crosses his arms over his chest and nods in the direction of the Baratie, stepping out of the way to give them a clear view of the scene. "I can guarantee that looters and other lowlife crooks will be swarming this place within hours. Would you really leave them alone out here, after what happened today?"

The bounty hunters share a look and wonder what reason the world's greatest swordsman would have to be concerned about the cooks of a simple restaurant, even if it  _is_  the renowned Baratie-on-the-Sea. They know that Zoro is a hopeless case, though; if left to him, he would yell himself hoarse at the cooks to get back on their feet and keep fighting. Grief and sorrow seem to be lost on him…or at least, they had believed so.

When he gets a good look at the cook, something in his face shifts, and the great Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro stares with a stricken expression at the white cloth covering the body's face and the pale glimpses of skin still exposed at its neck and hands.

 _"How dare you be so fragile…"_ He whispers so softly that only Johnny and Yosaku hear, and they know that he is probably thinking of Kuina, someone who often shows up in the precious few hours of his sleep and who is his main driving force in his quest to become the greatest, no matter how little he speaks of her. (They don't call themselves his brothers without reason.)

"At least acknowledge him," Johnny pleads, praying that he is not the next body that the Marines have to fish out of the water. Yosaku simply nods in support, looking like he is just managing to  _not_  be sick all over the deck.

Mihawk considers the two bounty hunters standing protectively in front of Zoro. "If we should cross paths on the Grand Line, I…would not deny your challenge. You have my word."

Luffy steps in at this point, to their great relief. "Good. Zoro wouldn't accept anything less than that."

He turns to the cooks. "Maybe we can work together to help these guys out, for now?"

The look of gratitude on the cooks' faces is enough to break their hearts, and when Mihawk nods his approval, the rest of Merry's crew is left stunned.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Carne slowly wrings water out of the towel and begin to wipe away the blood on Sanji's face, feeling like he is a hundred miles away. Beside him, Patty furiously rips open his shirt and washes up as much exposed skin as he can before he can get the chance to start crying again. The others seem to be doing the same, ashen-faced and somber as they work.

Zeff watches them from a chair they pulled in from the dining room, rubbing absently at the place where wood meets his flesh-and-bone leg, and they wonder if it's been bothering him ever since the Krieg pirates snapped it off. The remaining ex-member of that crew is seated on the floor near him, listlessly staring at Sanji like there is no one else in the world but the two of them.

It is all Carne can do to focus on his work when he feels so detached, like this is not Sanji and he is not preparing his body for burial. ( _It's not him_.)

His fingers brush against Sanji's temple, and he finds the little cluster of pockmarks along his hairline, left over from the bad bout of the chicken pox he'd suffered when he was ten. They had teased him about it to the point that the head chef had stepped in and kicked them all mercilessly around the restaurant until the boy stopped crying.

(It had been especially cruel, but back then they hadn't yet warmed up to the idea of having to work under a senior cook who was over three times younger than them.)

And then he can't distance himself enough, because there is that little white scar on his thumb from when he nearly amputated his own finger while showing off to Zeff, and over here is the birthmark behind his left ear that he was always so self-conscious about because it is shaped exactly like the gravy dish (or a fish, depending on who you asked), and his stupid, ridiculous, illogically curly eyebrows that just never matched look so damn perfect and beautiful right now. Carne promises,  _vows_ , to whoever is listening that he will never again tease Sanji for them if he would just wake up.

"Please…" His vision blurs and he stops, willing the tears not to fall. The others have stiffened at his voice, but he can't make himself go on. Please, please,  _please_. Give him back.

It's in the details that he finds Sanji, and it is in the details that he begins to break. Each mark, every scar, the hateful injuries littering his body, all of it is just more salt in the wound. From his perpetually broken toenails to the twisted, bloodied remains of his right hand (he dearly hopes that Sanji was not awake when they took his precious pride and livelihood, he hopes beyond  _anything_  that they didn't make him watch), he finds another piece of his heart wrenched away, again, and again and  _again_  until the others are crying with him as well like they might never stop.

But they do.

They do stop, and it hurts that their tears have dried out even though the pain burrows itself deeper into their chests until they can't breathe.

Somehow, not being able to cry makes the pain worse.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sanji had worn his white cook's uniform less and less as he grew, preferring the dark double-breasted suit and tie that they had become accustomed to seeing, as impractical and ridiculous as it was in the kitchen. They always chalked it up to his rebellious little quirks, like his long bangs and his stubborn smoking habit.

Now, he lies on the platform in his full chef's whites, looking as though he could just get up from there and stroll right into the kitchen again whenever he wanted. His hands are folded neatly together over what they could salvage of his suit, his damaged hand hidden carefully under the other, and in the dim light from the outdoor lanterns his ashen, unnatural pallor is completely disguised. It won't last long, Patty knows; there is only so far he will hold out against decomposition, despite their best efforts. None of them wants to abandon him to a coffin at the bottom of the sea, but they cannot carry him with such limited space on board the ship, so when Gin suggests a pyre they agree reluctantly. His eyes haven't yet begun to sink into his skull when the flames are lit, and the night sky glows golden around them as they watch over him on the remains of Baratie's fins.

To their surprise, they're crying again as he begins to burn, and when the flames swallow him whole, Patty screams these horrible, gut-wrenching sobs, because that damn annoying, frustrating, lovable little brat is truly gone now, and he is never coming back. No matter how the other cooks try, they can't get him to calm down the entire evening.

Zeff is oddly composed throughout the night, even as he lights the fire underneath the platform, and he keeps his eyes on Sanji's pyre until it consumes him entirely. Then, leaning heavily on his crutch, he leaves his cooks in their vigil over the funeral pyre, and he doesn't even wonder whether they'll stay the whole night (he knows that they will).

Somewhere out on the sea, Mihawk and Straw Hat pause in their patrol of the waters around the Baratie and look out at the blaze on the sea restaurant's deck, and they both remove their hats somberly as they watch the flames lick at the inky black sky. Merry's crew is silent and cheerless, and even the pirate looters on the horizon seem to hesitate at the sight.

No one attacks all night long.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The stairs leading up to the living quarters are narrow and twisting, and Zeff has to struggle up the last couple of steps on his crutch; he'll have to travel to shore to replace the leg again. He catches his breath on the landing, but instead of heading towards the master bedroom, he turns to the right, walking past the cooks' sleeping quarters and going all the way to the end of the hallway.

He stumbles into the little room and catches himself on the battered old chest of drawers against the wall. The bed sinks slightly under his weight, and he glances wearily around the sparsely decorated place. A small clock on the far wall, some pictures hanging behind him and set up on the nightstand, a lone pack of cigarettes on the dresser. It barely looks lived in, and Zeff wonders if he had bothered coming in here at all.

Without thinking about it, he slips in under the covers and lies down in the bed, feeling so empty and hollow. It doesn't seem like enough, so he reaches under the bed for the floppy little stuffed fish that he knows he'll find there. Sanji was always such a little kid, despite his grownup act, Zeff chuckles mirthlessly to himself, and he hugs Moby to his chest and brings the sheets up to his face in an attempt to compose himself. Sanji's smell surrounds him, cigarettes and sea salt and something inherently  _Sanji_ , and Zeff's eyes snap open. Tears begin to trickle down his cheeks, and he buries his face into the pillow as he shakes with uncontrollable sobs and splitting heartache, like he will never be whole again.

Zeff weeps for the Baratie cooks and their pain, for the heartbreak of a short life and lost dreams, for his own grief that will devour him whole. But mostly he weeps for Sanji, for his little eggplant and the fact that he will never again see him, or scold him, or touch him…

He weeps for his little boy that he will never be able to hold again.


	4. Comfort Food

The days march on like a funeral procession, and no one seems to know how much time has passed, or is passing, or will keep on passing, because each day is as pale and quiet as the last on the famed restaurant of the seas. Baratie's doors have reopened to the public, and most of their regulars have filled the main dining room to full capacity, but despite the hectic bustle of the lunch rush, there is a certain emptiness to the place.

Carne steps out onto the floor with a loaded tray and several tables to serve; in the absence of the waiters, they just have to make do with their limited staff of chefs and double up on front duty while keeping the kitchen running smoothly. By the end of the day everyone is so tired and run ragged that they just pass out on the bed for a couple of hours before hauling themselves back into the kitchen for another grueling shift.

He sets a round of appetizers in front of the customers at table _Cerise;_ his eyes catch a glimpse of golden hair across the table, and he almost drops the tray when the little blond boy gives him a dimply, gap-toothed smile.

"I can't go back out there," he mutters to Patty, who trades stations with him and gives his shoulder an understanding squeeze.

"Just don't you dare get tears and snot into the stew, idiot. Wash up and get table  _Poivre's_ order ready."

The kitchen is quiet and somber, and only the steady clatter of dishes and the hiss of the Baratie's eight grand stoves fills the absence of conversation. They barely get the chance to breathe, but that means that they don't have time to think about anything either. The kitchen is their only world, and for a while they just don't have to feel.

Then, Straw Hat's crew takes them hostage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone in the dining room is watching them in fearful silence, their meals forgotten the moment that Straw Hat and his crew entered the restaurant. The boy is sitting at the head of the long table his men have set up at the center of the floor, legs crossed underneath him and arms folded across his chest; he gives the chefs at the table a challenging look.

Patty matches his glare and says for the hundredth time: "Let us back into the kitchen."

"Don't wanna." His plate goes untouched in front of him, something that is apparently quite a feat, according to his crewmates. "Not until you guys stop acting like such idiots!"

The red-haired girl, Nami, nods at the hot meal served before the cooks and gives them a knowing look. "You haven't been eating, have you?"

With the way that they're looking at the food set out on the table, the answer is obvious; they've been so focused on forgetting the pain all week that they haven't even allowed themselves a chance to eat and rest. Scowling, Patty opens his mouth to tell her off when Carne speaks up quietly.

"It's hopeless…what would you do, Straw Hat, in our position?"

The boy scratches his head and looks to his crew. "What do you guys think?"

Their answers are almost immediate. "Lie about it."

"Turn to thievery."

"Train out of it."

"That's terrible advice; don't listen to them!" Johnny and Yosaku shout indignantly, and Straw Hat's three friends shrug shamelessly. Gin steps out of the kitchen at that moment where he has been following the entire exchange, letting his gaze sweep over the grief-stricken chefs and the Baratie's stunned clientele before he echoes the cook's question. "Oi, Straw Hat; what would you do right now?"

Luffy grins toothily. "I'd eat meat. All of it."

Gin smiles; it seems like such a simple-minded answer, and he understands that the last thing on their minds is eating, but numbing themselves to the pain and neglecting their own bodies is the choice of someone with real stupidity, especially since food is their area of expertise. They stare numbly at him, too shocked to protest when he tells them that in no uncertain terms. Luffy adds that if they are hungry, then they should eat.

The chefs reach their breaking point when Gin brings in the dish he set aside specifically for the Baratie's cooks, and he calmly addresses Patty and Carne, who are watching him suspiciously from Luffy's side. "What would Sanji say if he saw you refusing food like this?"

It was rather low of him to say that, but his words seem to reach through the walls they have built up. They tear into the food with a week's worth of hunger and gusto, determination shining in their eyes, as if they are saying that they will not fall that easily, nor give in to grief. Then, one of the chefs takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Patty is looking at Gin with tears in his eyes.

Luffy tugs the brim of his hat down and smiles softly, and the rest of his crew looks away sheepishly, but Gin refuses to look away. One by one, the cooks eat their earnest attempt at Sanji's specialty recipe, tears rolling down their cheeks as they taste the familiar dish and try to contain their grief. Not a one of them succeeds. Even though they are full-out shaking and sobbing by this point, they don't stop until they've eaten their fill, and Gin is relieved when they slowly begin to calm down.

For a long while, there is only the sound of their quiet weeping from the table, and eventually the tears end. Carne looks up at them with red-rimmed eyes and a weak smile.

"It was…good. Thank you."

They know it is mostly nostalgia speaking, but Straw Hat and his crew beam proudly anyway; they worked hard to get the food just right, even if they had to rely heavily on the notes in the margins of the recipe book. Luffy grins and gives a pleased laugh. "The chefs of a good restaurant like this should never go hungry! It's not right, you got it?"

The customers of the Baratie murmur in agreement, to the chefs' surprise. All around them, they are surrounded by bright, kind smiles, and Gin doesn't doubt that the cooks are going to be alright.

He has just moved to clear the table with the help of Luffy's crew when there is a sudden movement from the second floor. Everyone looks to the stairs leading up to the kitchen, and then slowly, step by step, the owner of the Baratie appears on the spiraling stairwell, looking haggard and worn. He glances around the room wearily until he finds Luffy.

"You're still here, too?"

The boy blinks at him from under his hat.

"Food's great here; I'm not leaving until I'm satisfied."

"Hm, is that right?" The smile doesn't reach his eyes, and Gin wonders what the old man is thinking right now. There is something like regret on his face, but a different kind than what he was wearing on That Day; it's just a little bitter and angry. Zeff draws in a deep breath and looks out at everyone in the restaurant. "I have something important to say, so everyone should shut the hell up and stop stuffing your great maws right now."

It's impressive how quickly the room falls silent at a few simple words.

Then the entire restaurant gapes at him in shock. "You're going to  _what_?"


	5. Keys

_The Cooking George is still drenched with water from the Grand Line's seas, and he can taste the memory of Reverse Mountain's salty spray on his wind-chapped lips; the Log Pose spins wildly out of control on the desk in his cabin, unable to grasp a strong magnetic pull from any of the ordinary islands of the East Blue. It is a strange, disorienting thing to come back home to a safe, normal stretch of sea._

_Of course, safety is all rather relative, he muses as his men plunder the passenger ship in the midst of a growing tempest. The ocean will never, ever truly be a home, no matter where one might sail. But all he needs is a few more minutes, and then they can pull away from the smaller vessel and escape this storm with their loot. Even though he has to take a moment to set an example of one of his men (the idiot knows that they never take food from their victims, he_ knows _this), they still have time._

_And then he meets him, a bright-eyed little fighter boy with snarling conviction in his bared teeth and fear clinging to every single tear that he refuses to let fall, even as the pirates mock and stomp on his dream and his own crew tells him to silence his voice. He stands up after each and every one of Zeff's legendary kicks (he doesn't hold back even for naïve, loud-mouthed little brats) and spits back the vitriol they send his way. Blood trickles out of the corner of his mouth when his ribs are unable to withstand the blows any longer, and as the pirates turn to retreat to their ship, he can see the tears spilling down across his cheeks, even in the rain._

_Zeff sees the first cracks in the sweet, fragile dreams of a little child, and he vows to never let the light of hope leave that boy's eyes ever again._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mihawk watches him from the doorway with a patient, expectant look, like he is always going around to mourning people's homes to make sure they haven't given up and died yet.  _Or maybe I'm just bored_ , he had drawled carelessly, ignoring the lamp, books, and other various objects that he had thrown at him from Sanji's bedside table. The bastard looks entirely too comfortable with being on the receiving end of someone's uncontrolled anger.

"So there is something left in you, cook," he says with a raised brow, and Zeff scowls at him for daring to find anything funny about the situation (though he cannot help but agree with him; he had believed that he had lost everything with Sanji, but apparently he could still get riled up by shitty swordsmen who couldn't mind their own business). "You didn't strike me as the type to give up."

The cook stares at the mess he is sprawled in: a pile of Sanji's sheets and forgotten clothes, several unfinished novels and an old newspaper from last month. Somewhere on the floor beside him there is a growing pile of empty dishes and liquor bottles. Strange, he had never been one for alcohol.

"I don't anything left to give up on," he mutters, feeling oddly deflated by the reality before him. He has lost everything that mattered to him, and it took him until now to realize it, didn't it? What is left?

The swordsman has the audacity to look amused. "Grief is not a prison, cook." He gestures at the door. "Do you have a reason to walk out of this room?"

 _No,_ he wants to tell him bitterly _, I lost everything nine days ago when Krieg blasted the front doors of the Baratie wide open and snuffed out the light of my life. I lost all my reasons when he stole the last breaths of the little boy I vowed to protect from the harsh reality of the world, when everything that Sanji was and ever would be was destroyed, when his dreams-_

Zeff's eyes widen, and Mihawk gives a slight smile, that clever bastard.

 

 

* * *

 

 

This is how he finds himself on the Baratie's main stairwell, looking down into the shocked faces of his staff and his customers, making the announcement that will change his world from its broken foundations upward, and no one manages to speak for several long minutes.

Then, one of the cooks gives a squawk of disbelief. "You're going to do what?!"

"You wear glasses, Harkl, not a hearing aid," he snaps without any real anger. "I know you heard me the first time."

From where he stands, he can see the smirk on Mihawk's face even as he stands hidden in the kitchen, and he cannot help a smile of his own; it's been a while since he actually felt a little like himself.

Straw Hat looks up at him with an excited grin. "Eh, old man? Are you really gonna do this?"

"Are you sure about this, boss?" Bastion comes to Harkl's defense; they've always been close friends, so Zeff isn't surprised at all. "You understand what your decision entails, right?"

"Don't question my judgment, idiots; I'm always certain of everything I choose to do." He glares challengingly at everyone, arms crossed resolutely across his chest. "It's not like this is the first time I choose to go either; I probably have the most experience on that sea than anyone else on this shit can combined." Except for Mihawk, of course, but no one needs to know about the swordsman currently hiding out in his kitchen right now. Zeff decided that having one of the Shichibukai in his restaurant would be just a little too much of a shock to his customers and cooks, especially so soon after the Krieg incident a week ago, and the man had reacted rather well to being shoved into the galley without warning or ceremony (at least, he thought so; it was hard to tell with this bastard).

There are whispers and mutters from all around the dining hall, but Zeff doesn't care what any disbelieving idiots had to say about his choice; he has made up his mind and would follow through in his decision until his very last breath. Some would call him tenacious, but he prefers the more direct term, stubborn.

Apparently Harkl has the same idea. "Sir, forgive me for being so tactless, but are you off your rocker?"

" _Harkl_!" Bastion looks horribly distressed, and the others look like they're about to soil themselves as well. It would be more amusing if this was just another day at the Baratie instead of the day that he chooses to end everything they have ever known.

"I'm sorry, but why in hell are you choosing to head to the Grand Line? That place is a pirate's graveyard, and you said it yourself; you've been there before. What reason do you have to go back?"

"It's for Sanji."

The Baratie has gone deathly silent. Even Straw Hat stops his cheerful chatter with his first mate at the news of Zeff's decision.

"I'm going to keep the last part of him alive," he says evenly, almost afraid that the dam of his emotions is going to break under his words. "His dreams."

He makes his way down the rest of the stairs in silence, feeling the weight of their stares on him as he joins them in the dining room. It is amazing that they don't seem to hear the thundering beat of his heart; he feels like it is about to burst out of his ribcage. Straw Hat is staring at him with a quiet, sage look in his dark eyes, and he feels his heart ache a little more.  _You're a sharp, good captain, aren't you, boy? I would have given him to you; I know you would have taken good care of him._

"So, now everything is out in the open," Zeff says resolutely, waiting for the torrential floodgates to open up and hit him with criticisms and doubts and oppositions. "You can't change my mind, though you're welcome to try, shitheads."

At first, none of them oppose him, even the skeptical Harkl, and they all vow to stay with him through his decision. But then, Patty and Carne exchange a glance and rise to their feet, and for a moment, he actually feels betrayed. He expected it from some of the others but never his two oldest and most trusted men.

Of course, they give him the shock of his life instead. "Sir, there's something you need to know. Sanji was…we had planned to reveal it later, but it looks like the time came sooner than any of us had expected."

Zeff takes the envelope from Carne's hands with a dumbfounded expression. "The three of us wanted to tell you together, but…erm, here it is."

The little eggplant had known from the start, hadn't he? Zeff stands on the deck of the Going Merry and stares up at the Baratie in stunned amazement, a weak smile on his face at the bittersweet sight before him. There are tears stinging his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall, not in front of an audience.  _That idiot…he was always going on about everything I did for him, but he never realized that he would outdo me in everything, even after he…_

Straw Hat grins widely and shoves his hat back to get a good look at the Baratie. "Oi, old man; now you definitely have to come along with us."

Zeff holds the letter in his trembling hands and nods. "Aye, just try to keep up, little brat."


	6. We'll Meet Again

The letter makes a crisp, crackling sound when he dares to unfold it again on the Watura shipyards while the Baratie is undergoing her last preparations for the journey, and Sanji's handwriting covers most of the page in large, sprawling loops and strokes, a nostalgic, painful sight.

Nostalgic, hmph. There is a word he had never expected to associate with the little Eggplant. Sanji was always in the here and now, more focused on working hard to help the business than about daydreaming or thinking about the past. Zeff is trying not to fall into that trap, but right now the shipwrights are finishing caulking up the new hull and he has had nothing to do in the past four hours but wait. So, with trepidation and care, he lets his eyes wander over the page, smiling a bit at the nervous scratches and X's over the greeting ( _To Owner Zeff_ , crossed out;  _Dear shitty geezer_ , another mark;  _Da_ -, that one has so many scribbles and ink blots over it that he can't make out what it was meant to say in the first place). In the end, the boy had opened his letter with a simple  _hey, old man_.

_You're probably wondering why I'm giving this to you in a letter when I could just talk to you face to face-_

Zeff forces down the welling, panicky ache in his chest and shoves the letter back into his coat, trying not to think about how far from the truth that statement is now. He searches for the shipyards' supervisor so that he can at least look over the billing statements, even if the account has already been settled. The damn brat took care of that too, and he wonders just how Sanji managed to pull this all off under his nose,  _on his own damn ship_.

Patty and Carne had something to do with it, but every time they try to explain they get so choked up that they can't even speak. He gives up trying to wring the story out from them and instead works out what he is going to do about his staff. Once he runs the numbers through, Zeff gives them two weeks, a respectable share of the Baratie's funds, and a recommendation for any restaurant they choose to seek work at. None of them take it.

"Do you really think we would leave, after everything we've been through?" Bastion smiles and dons his Baratie uniform, and the others follow suit with as much pride. "Forgive me, sir, but you're stuck with us."

Zeff recovers from his shock with a smirk, wondering why he feels so much relief and happiness to hear those words from his cooks. "You're just gluttons for punishment, aren't you? Get ready, idiots, because the Grand Line isn't going easy on you, and I won't either."

They laugh with him, already knowing that as harsh as their head chef may be, they can think of no one else that they would rather follow. The cooks follow him towards the Baratie as she is lowered back into the water, the damage from Don Krieg's attacks repaired and vanished and the new expansions and ballasts are fully calibrated and ready for the open water. She looks exactly like the day that she first set sail in the Sambas region with them, and Zeff feels that same sad nostalgia in his heart, pretending that he isn't looking for a little yellow-haired boy clambering all over the Baratie's figurehead.

_-but you already know how that would turn out, probably. And I'd rather you hear me out first, before we start screaming and kicking at each other._

Mihawk stands on his own boat on the far side of the docks, admiring the shipwrights' work and nodding his approval to the cooks. He suggests that they test out the new hull against his blade, and all of them stare at him, slack-jawed and speechless, while the head chef marches right over to his moored boat and aims a beautifully arched kick at his face.

The shipyard erupts into chaos, with the Baratie cooks struggling to pull their boss away as he attacks Mihawk, screaming obscenities and insults while the swordsman holds him off with his borrowed sword and yells back at him for not taking his suggestion seriously (the problem was, and it was something he had yet to realize, that the cook had taken it  _much_  too seriously). The poor dock workers have no idea what to do with the fighting pair of pirates and simply make a run for it.

When the cooks finally manage to tear them away from each other, they are laughing and thinking that for the first time in what feels like forever, they've actually had an enjoyable, interesting challenge. It's not until much later that they begin to consider the other as a worthwhile rival and comrade.

* * *

_Admitting your feelings and opening up is never easy, and sometimes it hurts like hell. Sometimes you have to reach the bottom first before you finally cave and let someone in._

Nami turns her tear-streaked face towards Luffy, barely able to choke out the words "help me" before he places his beloved hat on her head and shouts, loud enough to reverberate throughout the island and reach Arlong's ears, that of course he will. She watches in stunned silence as he furiously leads Zoro, Usopp, and the bounty hunter brothers towards the fishmen's headquarters (not once does the thought that they are a member short even cross her mind).

Clutching her injured arm, she tries to understand the reasons why anyone would still want to help her after everything she has done, why the people of Cocoyashi Village would give their lives for her (like Bellemere) and why Luffy, who knows nothing and owes her nothing, would bring his crew out to Arlong Park to fight for her. Her thoughts wander back to the Sambas waters, where a lonely restaurant on the seas lies mourning the loss of a single cook. He had been nothing but a womanizing, trash-talking troublemaker, according to some of the stories that the grieving cooks had shared with her amidst fond tears and laughter, and yet he had given up his life for them for no apparent reason. It's while she's reflecting on this that the answer to her questions finally make itself clear.

Twin trails of smoke rise into the air as Bellemere and Sanji grin at her around their cigarettes, an emotion she had forgotten about glittering in their eyes and making her remember the reason that she had worked for Arlong all those years. The reason that anyone could ever help someone like her, a common thief, a delinquent, a thug.

They hold their hands out to her, and she allows them to pull her to her feet.

Fresh tears stream down her cheeks as she flies down the dirt road to Arlong Park, determination and love (of course,  _love_ ) pounding in her heart as she prepares to fight with the people who care about her despite her past. When Nami arrives at the base she finds her friends already deep in battle and Luffy is nowhere in sight. It doesn't take her long to learn what has happened from Johnny and Yosaku, who are keeping her angry loved ones from interfering with the fight ( _thank you_ , she mouths to them,  _for protecting my family_ ), and seeing that Zoro has his hands full with Hachi and Kuroobi on either side, she dives smoothly into the water, not noticing that Arlong has caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye.

Nami can still hear the resounding crashes from Usopp's battle with Chu above the water, but her focus is on the crazy boy she calls her captain and the rock he is trapped in. She reaches Luffy in record time and meets Nojiko halfway, who quickly fills her in on the boy's state. He is breathing, as she and Genzo have pulled his head above the water (thank God for his unnatural Devil Fruit abilities), but they need to get him out of this rock and back up to the surface where Usopp and Zoro will definitely be needing his help in order to face Arlong.

They work with grim resolve on freeing his feet from the stone, remaining at his side for as long as their lungs will allow before they have to head up for a huge, oxygen-starved breath. It is tedious and slow, but Luffy's feet finally begin to come into view underneath the stone slab, and the girls start striking at it with renewed vigor and determination. That is, until Arlong arrives.

Her mouth opens in a silent scream as Arlong slams her against the walls of the ocean pool, and Nami can feel the damage travel up her spine in crackling, fiery cold pain (she isn't sure whether it's nerve pain or spinal fractures that she's feeling). Nojiko's shriek rings in her ears, muffled and distant, and when she has recovered enough to raise her head, she sees Arlong pull away from her and try to wrench her sister off of him. Nojiko takes every last blow and hit from his fists, clawing at his face and refusing to let the man go. She knows if that if she lets go, it will be over for the two of them. Nami has a sudden vision of Bellemere fighting to protect her, blood streaked across her face and steely resolve in her eyes, and it takes her no time at all to raise her weapon at Arlong.

The fishman whirls around and fixes his shocked, wide-eyed gaze on her, a hand clamped tightly over his neck and blood clouding the water around him. Nami smirks weakly, the warm gun still pointed rigidly at his gills and ready for a second shot. She knows that he can read her expression, it's in her eyes, in her body language, angry and clear.  _Let my sister go. Let my family and friends go. Let me go._

He wants to attack her, that much is obvious, but with an injury like that he is, figuratively speaking, a fish out of water. Choking back another bloody cough, Arlong scowls at her and shoots up toward the surface for air. It's at this moment that Nojiko drags her up as well, and they break the water's surface with wheezing, coughing gasps and tears at seeing the other's wellbeing.

"Nami, oh Nami," Nojiko weeps, kissing her brow and pulling her close, desperate and frightened. "My dear little sister, you're alright."

Nami just whimpers quietly and buries her face into Nojiko's shoulder. "I thought he was going to kill you."

"It's okay, I'm alright…you're alright, Nami." Her sister cannot stop smiling at her, and Nami is starting to think that this has been a long time coming. "You're alright and he can be defeated. Arlong is going to lose, and you just gave us proof of that."

The weight of that statement settles into Nami's heart, but she hasn't felt this light in years. Beaming, she dives back under one last time to Luffy's rock, and then, with her sister by her side and the whole village cheering them on, the two sisters strike down on the broken slab with all their might and free Monkey D. Luffy just in time for his long awaited battle with Arlong. His battle is the longest and the bloodiest, and it takes down the fishmen's base with it, but the truth is that Arlong Park crumbled the moment that Nami and Nojiko broke the stone around Luffy's feet, together.

There are no words to describe what it felt like to walk back towards Cocoyashi Village with her friends and family, her sister's hand in her own.

_Sometimes, words just aren't necessary (and yet I still feel like I should explain something first)._

* * *

_When I first woke up after we were rescued, I forgot about everything except what you did for me; it was weighing so heavily on my mind that I couldn't even sleep, and then you came in and gave me food. I remember crying so hard that I made myself sick._

The housekeeper leaves a pile of warm, clean towels on the little wicker rack just on the other side of the screen separating the baths from the rest of the room, but the baths' occupant doesn't say a word, and she thinks that she might have made a mistake and gone to the wrong room. After checking to make sure that yes, it was the right place, she simply shrugs and continues on to the next room, deciding that she would peek in again later to make sure that no one had gone and drowned in there. Then again, she might just leave  _that_  mess to the evening staff.

Inside the room, the silent lodger stares at the crisscrossing beams on the ceiling and listens to the sound of the door closing behind the housekeeper. He might have thanked her if he didn't fear that the sight of him would have scared her off and sent her straight to the authorities. Pirates do have that effect on people.

Besides, he doesn't feel like getting out just yet.

Gin closes his eyes and settles back into the bath, savoring the way all of his aches and injuries are fading away with time and a good, long soak. He has never had a proper bath before, not one where he's  _not_  angrily scrubbing the sickly sweet smell of blood and gore from his skin with icy water drawn from the nearest river or stream (or, if he's lucky, under a cold spray of water).

He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflective surface of the sliding screen door and stares; it takes him a minute to recognize himself. After several weeks of rest and actual  _sleep_ , not to mention good food and a decent shave, he looks better than he has in years, even before he met Krieg.

He looks  _human_.

Gin frowns at his hands, realizing for the first time in his life that his skin is not as pallid and ashen as he had always believed. He gives himself time to reconcile his reflection with the old perception he has of himself, and he just can't. It isn't fair that he is sitting here (healthy, breathing, living) while the last image of Sanji he has is of his grey pallor and his dull blue eyes. Gin's dark, flushed complexion seems to just mock him as the cook's lifeless face stares back at him even when he closes his eyes.

He can understand why he feels like this, but when the Don's face invades his mind Gin can't explain the strange way that his pulse quickens, or the fact that he is trembling.  _They're dead now, and I'm free…though it shouldn't have turned out like this._ Thoughts drift through his mind like a whirlwind:  _I should have fought for him_  and  _why did I betray him?_  and  _why couldn't Sanji just leave the damn hunk of scrap metal? Why couldn't someone just listen to me for **once**  instead of everyone flying off the handle?_

Gin covers his face with his hands and sinks under the water with a groan, wondering if he should just put himself out of his guilt-ridden misery right here and now. He is crewless, directionless, and just feels so hopelessly alone that he asks himself why he ended up safe and alive while Sanji and Krieg are gone. He certainly doesn't deserve it.

 _Neither did Krieg_ , he thinks bitterly, and then just as quickly he banishes the thought from his mind guiltily. He shouldn't be thinking that way of his captain, and yet he can't help but feel anger towards the man who killed Sanji and left him drifting out here, alone and lost.

Gin spends several minutes fuming and despairing at his own sorry state before he has to climb out of the tub because  _God, when did the water get this cold?_  The sun is warm against his skin, at least, he thinks as he pulls a shirt on over his bare shoulders when he steps out onto the balcony outside his room.

On a day as clear and bright as this, the ocean can be seen for miles from the hotel he has holed himself up in. Somewhere in the distance to the west lie the Conomi Islands, where he last heard that Straw Hat and his crew were headed. He wishes them luck but knows that they would never part ways with him willingly, so while they had been departing from the Baratie, Gin had taken the chance to steal away on one of the customers' ships before ending up on this little no-name island on the corner of East Blue. He doesn't know what he is going to do now but he knows that his path is not going to coincide with theirs, not when the Grand Line is their final destination. No, the cooks and the pirate crew don't need him with them, not now and not in the future. They're better off without him, and he-

Well, he would say he's better off alone, but though he had thought about this moment in the past, the truth is that he doesn't know what to do with himself now. Gin had considered going his own way before, when he was still under Krieg's command. Now that he has the chance, he doesn't know where to go.

Gin is leaning tiredly on the railing, resting his cheek in his hand and half-asleep, when he finds himself muttering quietly, "Hey, Sanji…would it be alright for me to come back and eat here again?"

Sanji's response is warm and kind, and he smiles brightly at Gin over the railing above him. "Sure, anytime."

Gin's eyes snap open, and he realizes the true meaning behind the cook's words back at the restaurant.  _You'll always have a place here, Gin._

The door to the balcony is ajar when the housekeeper returns to the room, and she finds nothing but a pair of earrings on the nightstand and a torn menu from some restaurant called  _The Baratie_. The room is relatively clean and looks practically unused, but at least she didn't find a body in the tub. Hm, small victories.

* * *

_You stayed with me all night, and I realized then that I had already let you in._

The Baratie-on-the-Sea opens her doors to the public one last time on a Thursday morning, and she has more visitors that day than any other day in all of her ten years in service; everyone wants to come in to say goodbye, and some arrive on their knees begging Owner Zeff to please take a few days off to clear his mind. He is _confused_ , he is _grieving_ ,  _he is making a terrible mistake_. Zeff thanks them for their time and tells them to get off his damn ship (he's already in a sour mood because they're short one person).

This time he isn't afraid to use Mihawk to get his point across.

"When did I become your doorman?" the swordsman mutters moodily, watching the chef's detractors pale and scurry away at the sight of him. He has agreed to escort them as far as the Red Line before his other obligations force him to part ways with them, but somehow he has also gotten roped into many other things, like kitchen duty, bussing at the busiest tables, and front house greeting. Mihawk is starting to learn a bit about the special kind of hell that hospitality and customer service is. Zeff just scoffs and tells him that he should be glad he hasn't been sent out to wait on tables yet, and the swordsman blanches.

As they prepare to close up for the last time, and it does ache in a sad, bittersweet way, one of the Baratie's oldest and most loyal customers arrives for one final meal and a single, generous gift.

"Oh, no, Motzel, we can't accept this." Zeff is an expert at handling people and tricky situations, when he isn't losing his temper over them. Mr. Motzel is one of the few that he respects and cares about, and it shows in the way he tries to gently decline the gift that the man has placed on the table.

"Consider it a gift in memory of Sanji," the portly gourmet smiles as he stands up to leave, shaking his head at their stunned expressions with a soft, sad chuckle. "My gut and I will definitely miss this place, but I would rather you take that money and use it to help you fulfill his dream instead."

Zeff swallows hard around the lump in his throat and nods. "Motzel, I won't forget your generosity. Every one of us is…we'll definitely come back to tell you all about it."

Mr. Motzel's smile widens. "I'm glad. That boy was a little rough around the edges, but he meant a lot to the people of this place too. I never met someone who could cook my favorite dessert crêpes so perfectly, and he had such a sweet smile too. It's too late now, but this is my way of saying thank you, to him…and to all of you."

Mihawk turns his gaze away as the man departs with tearful hugs for all the staff and walks through the doors of the restaurant for the last time. This is turning out to be more than he bargained for. Getting Zeff up and about again was simple; kicking out all of Zeff's unwanted visitors was just as easy. He hopes that there are no more weepy goodbyes because it's starting to make him feel uncomfortable. Somewhere out in the East Blue, Shanks is probably laughing at him, the prick.

Zeff mouths an apology and promises that it will all be over soon.

* * *

_What I'm trying to say is that you've done so much for me, and I wanted to do something for you, even if it's just a small gesture._

Patty and Carne are directing the others as they ready the sails, but just as they've raised the new anchor, an entire fleet of ships arrives at the stern of the Baratie. At the head of the group stands Roxanne and her little girl, along with all of the Baratie regulars.

"We came to send you off," the young woman calls, and there are tears glittering in her eyes even as she fights to keep a smile on her face. "I hope you don't mind, Owner Zeff."

He is touched by the gesture, and most of the Baratie cooks are as well; some of them are already furtively wiping at tears with the back of a sleeve or hand. "Not at all, Roxanne. I'm just sorry it had to be like this."

"Don't be!" Roxanne grins back at the rest of the group, and they nod at her to continue. "The only reason to be sad is that he couldn't be part of the sendoff too."

Her voice cracks in the middle of her sentence, and she has to take a deep breath before going on. "He was…the kindest, most wonderful boy I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and he was so good to me and my little girl, and to all of us. Do your best to find that crazy dream of his, captain!"

Zeff remembers Roxanne's story, and how fond Sanji had been of the single mother and her tiny, happy little girl who was always finding her way into the restaurant's kitchen for some time with her "older brother". Alicci beams up at them and waves while Roxanne and the others share their stories of the late young cook and of the Baratie. Everyone is weeping openly while the afternoon begins to creep in, and yet no one is ready to leave. He thinks that maybe they could make this day last forever, but then Mihawk gives him a sharp glance, and Roxanne seems to remember that they cannot hold the ship up any longer.

"Please take care of yourselves, and remember to eat lots, and don't go picking fights with bad customers!" The rest of the Baratie's clientele add their own warnings, some of them reasonable, like avoiding the Marines, while others are downright bizarre ("don't forget to pay the toll at Heaven's Gate!"). The cooks promise to heed all of their advice, even the strange heaven tidbit.

"Uncle Zeff, wait!" Alicci runs to the bow of the ship and holds up a strange black packet in her arms, looking worried. "I forgot to give you your present!"

He furrows his brow. "What is it-?"

The wind snatches it right out of her hands and she cries out in despair as it is carried away from her ship...all the way to the Baratie. Patty and Carne end up with a faceful of dark black cloth, which everyone on the ship looks at curiously. Zeff glances at them out of the corner of his eye and remarks that it is quite an improvement for them. "Put it back on, you bastards."

Patty shoots him a glare, but before he can say anything Carne shoves it back in his face. "What the hell, Carne?"

"Look at it, guys." Carne stretches the cloth out, and they end up looking right at the Jolly Roger that Alicci had spent exactly fourteen days, eight hours, and twenty-seven minutes working on. It is huge, it is bold, it is remarkably well done, a testament to her artistic talent and hard work. It is perfect. "This is ours…this is our Jolly Roger."

Zeff grins and waves back at the ship as they slowly pull away from the fleet. "Thank you, Alicci!"

"Bye, Uncle Zeff! Bye, everyone!" She waves her arms over her head and shouts at the top of her lungs to be heard above everyone else's goodbyes. "When you all come back, I'm gonna be a famous cook of the sea, too!"

"We'll have a spot for you in the restaurant, Alicci!" Carne shouts back. "So you'd better become the finest cook in the East Blue by the time we return!"

"I will! Come back soon, please!" The little girl throws her arms around her mother's legs and begins to sob. "Buh-bye, big b-brother Sanji! I'll miss you!"

It's like she opened the dam to the waterworks, and soon there is not a dry eye on the waters as they leave. Zeff sighs and wishes that this wasn't so damn painful; Sanji should have been here with them, and it doesn't feel right that he can't say goodbye. "I think, if the little Eggplant was here…"

He's caught everyone's attention, and they all fall silent and listen expectantly. Even Mihawk looks curious as he stands at the helm of the ship. "…he would say that he's proud of every last one of you, and that he'll miss you too. I think he'd say, 'let's meet up again someday, you bastards'!"

The rest of the cooks smile in agreement; that sounds just like their Sanji, except for one little detail. "He'd definitely say that," Carne nods, "but as for the women, he'd probably be too busy swooning over them to remember to say goodbye."

"He wouldn't say bye, he'd say, 'Mellorine!'" Alicci shouts tearfully, and then everyone looks at each other in astonishment. It's the strangest thing ever, but that word is so nostalgic and yet so funny that their goodbyes turn into half-sobbing, half-laughing shouts and cries.

That is how the Baratie cooks departed from their old friends on the East Blue, amidst a chorus of "Good luck!" and "Mellorine, Baratie! Mellorine, Sanji!" Mihawk stares at the bawling assembly and declares them all to be, in his expert opinion, clinically insane.

Zeff smirks at him and nudges at him to join in. "Come on, don't be an ass and say goodbye to them."

"I'm not saying that word."

He doesn't like the way that the cook is looking at him. "It would honor his memory."

" _Bull_." In the end, the swordsman cannot take any more of the cook's pestering and says it, once, only for Zeff to laugh so hard that he starts sobbing into the Jolly Roger, and Mihawk doesn't even get another sparring match to make up for it.

All in all, their departure is moving and yet utterly ridiculous, and he learns once more why he prefers his solitude and peace back home.

* * *

_I haven't forgotten our promise on the rock, old man_.

_At the time we thought we would both die, and I seriously doubt that we actually expected to be saved. In our starved, delirious minds, we never conceived the idea that the horizon would ever bring us our salvation just twenty-four hours later (Twenty-four hours seems so short now, doesn't it? Back then, it felt like we were living eternities.), but we made up fairytale promises about what we would do once we got off that island. Promises about a restaurant and the hungry and our ocean._

* * *

The Red Line looms just ahead of them, and of course Straw Hat is late in coming to their meeting spot (and he still can't forget about the other one, of course). Mihawk doesn't seem to want to leave them just yet, which they will be thankful for later, and they pass the time sharing stories (the staff) and advice (Mihawk and Zeff). During the hour's delay, the renovations to the ship come up again.

"I'm just wondering how that boy managed to keep this under wraps for so long," Bastion says as he shuffles his pack of cards again before dealing them out to the others.

Zeff glances over at them, giving Patty and Carne a pointed look. "Yes, I wonder how, Bastion."

Carne looks like he's about to break out into a nervous sweat, but then Patty answers the question for him. "It wasn't as hard as you'd think, Zeff. The kid had been working on this for years…"

_At sixteen, Sanji sought them out with an odd request._

_"Help me get the old man off the ship."_

_Patty wonders if the demanding responsibilities and long hours are finally starting to get to the brat. He certainly looks run ragged, and sitting there in his rumpled suit, looking at him with dark circles under his tired eyes, and his hair all mussed, the boy had never looked so young and frail. But the constant scowl on his face reminds him of how much of a pain he can be, so the cook doesn't let his guard down around the new sous-chef._

_"It's definitely past your bedtime now, isn't it, brat?"_

_"Shut up, bastard; I'm dead serious." Sanji closes up the books for the night and locks up the safe before nodding toward the smaller side office. "I've been working on a project and I need Zeff to be away for a little while, just for this next part."_

_"You're going to steal the restaurant," Carne marvels at his audacity. "From under the owner's nose. I'm impressed at your gall."_

_He grins cheekily. "What kind of pirate's kid would I be if I couldn't manage something as simple as that?"_

_"If it's so simple, then why do you need our help?" The Baratie was unusually busy that evening and Patty is tired enough to want to go straight to bed tonight. If the kid is holding him up just to brag…_

_Sanji seems to guess what he is thinking and shakes his head. "He wouldn't leave the ship unless it was really urgent, and I need to have someone with him to keep him busy while I take care of this. Please, it's not the only thing I need help with."_

_Maybe it's the uncharacteristic 'please', or the honest, open look on his face, but they relent moodily and hear him out._

_What he shares with them is even more impressive than the 'stealing the restaurant' idea._

_Patty loves the plan, he loves the thrill of the adventure, he loves the reason behind it, but Carne needs a little convincing. "And you think he'll actually go along with your little quest into the 'Pirates' Graveyard'?"_

_The boy has an abashed look on his face. "I know that I'm an asshole, and I'm a bastard and probably being a complete tool here, but I know that it was his dream first. I'm expecting a lot from him, especially after everything that I took from him, but it was his dream!"_

_Carne can feel his resolve melt away, and he knows that Sanji has already won Patty over and that it's his turn next. He sighs inwardly. "You're right, you are expecting a lot. How do you know he is going to want to pick up his old dream again, kid?"_

_His eyes are dark and solemn. "Because you don't just let go of a dream like that. I know he wants it as much as the day that he first envisioned it."_

_But Zeff would never leave his second dream behind; no, he loved the Baratie too much to abandon her. To survive in the Grand Line, though, she would need a lot of work. The shipwrights of Watura were all too happy to help, but they needed to bring in the ship and take a close look at her specifications and measurements._

_"I've read what I could find on sailing and the Grand Line, but I really don't know as much as I thought I did," he mumbles, blushing when Patty laughs and ruffles his hair teasingly. "Oi, not the hair, bastard."_

_"You're still practically a baby, stupid. Sure, the Grand Line isn't our line of expertise, but the three of us will definitely figure out that godforsaken place. It's our Baratie on the line, after all."_

_"If I'd only had half of that initiative when I was your age, brat…" Carne grins and extends his hand to the startled boy. "You have my help as well."_

_Sanji's eyes widen, and a slow, hesitant smile spreads across his face. He shoves his hands into his pockets and lowers his gaze; his eyes are bright and gleam in the dim light with what Carne suspects are tears of relief. "…you idiots aren't so bad, after all. Maybe. Don't look at me."_

_It's as close to a thank you as they're going to get, and so they take it._

"It took us several 'emergency' trips with Zeff to the mainland, along with several hundred thousand belis and hundreds of hours of research to actually set our plan in motion," Carne adds to Patty's account of the whole thing, a wistful smile on his face as he remembers how everything began. "In the end, we had one very tired, very cranky teenager to take care of when we visited the Watura shipyards to set up the contract."

Zeff wonders if he can trust himself to speak after what he's just heard. He isn't angry; it just feels something like a hollow victory to have made it this far without the little Eggplant at his side. "When did you close the contract with the shipyard foreman?"

Patty grins. "Remember how you asked me to get rid of him a couple of months ago so we could set up for his birthday? He took the old sloop out to the shipyard and made the final payment then."

_So it was recent…if I had learned of this sooner, would I have accepted his proposal? Would we have been able to avoid Krieg's men and escape into the Grand Line before he even dreamed of heading there himself? Would that have changed everything that's happened in the last few weeks?_

Before his thoughts have a chance to spiral down  _that_  road, the Going Merry makes her loud, boisterous arrival, with Straw Hat waving cheerfully and bouncing up and down on her figurehead.

"Oi, old man! We're here!"

This is when he learns just how much of an idiot the boy actually is. "Yes, and you brought half of East Blue's Marines with you, brat! What the hell are you doing?"

Straw Hat grins widely and crooks his head. "Smoker doesn't really like me."

"He's got a bounty!" Nami shouts across the water as she desperately works with the long-nosed young man to avoid the cannon shots from the Marine ship, while the first mate slices through stray shots with his sword like he's waving a bat around. Mihawk looks visibly agitated. "I'm sorry; we tried to keep a low profile at Loguetown, but Luffy is like a magnet for trouble! Usopp, I said my left, not yours!"

("It's the same left!")

"A magnet for trouble…I can see that." Zeff can feel a headache coming on already, and they haven't even set sail yet. He turns to his men and tells them to haul up anchor again. "Let's move, Straw Hat's given us a time limit."

Mihawk stops him for a moment. "I know I said I'd take you to Reverse Mountain, but I can help you better from here, as a distraction. You know your way at this point, anyway."

"Whatever suits you," Zeff shrugs and has Patty help him get his boat back in the water. Within minutes Mihawk has surrounded himself in Marine ships, and the officers look like they don't know what to do with the Shichibukai standing directly in their path. They can't attack him, but with the way he is twirling the small dagger in his hand it seems he is trying to goad them to fight.

Or it's a distraction, Smoker thinks as he watches Straw Hat's ship getting further away. Another ship joins them, unmarked and possibly civilian, and they head south along the Red Line, and suddenly he knows where they're going.

_Not if I can help it…_

* * *

"They actually caught up," Usopp mutters weakly, watching the Marine Barque approaching Reverse Mountain at full speed. "Luffy, they're going to follow us all the way into the Grand Line. What are we going to do?"

Luffy just grins excitedly and leans out over the Merry's figurehead as the two ships begin to glide along on the upward current. "Who cares, do you see this? We're going up the mystery mountain!"

Nami counts to three before she allows herself to speak. "Luffy, we have nowhere to run. If they open fire, we're done for."

The boy swings his legs lazily and glances back at his worried crewmates. Zoro stands at the stern silently, one hand resting on the hilt of his main sword as he watches the Marine ship moving towards them. "Eh, Zoro; what do you think?"

"…like you said, we can't die before you become Pirate King, right?"

The navigator may have a point, but Zeff knows that men like Straw Hat and Roronoa are not easily defeated nor swayed. They have a conviction in their gut that is more powerful than any weapon, more fearsome than any sea beast, and more fathomless than all of the oceans put together. No matter what happens, he knows that they will not die here.

He hears it before Smoker gives the order to fire, a collective gasp rippling through the Marine's ranks as he raises his hand to signal the attack, and then the first column of the waterway's entrance crumbles with an echoing crack, and the second one follows mere seconds later. Straw Hat is on his feet and racing down the length of his ship, calling out to his first mate who seems to understand him without words and follows him onto the Baratie, where they join Zeff at the stern.

"Zoro, take care of the cannonballs." Without explanation, the boy extends his arms out and reaches into the water below the falling debris.

"H-his arms…" Patty croaks listlessly, looking as though he's just seen the sky flip on itself. "What the hell is wrong with him?"

"He's a rubberman," Zoro says by way of explanation, cutting through a stray shot that comes much too close to the mast. The other cooks stand at the ready by their own cannons, but they look unwilling to open fire, and Zeff doesn't blame them. As far as the Marines know, they're just civilians caught in the crossfire of a Pirate-Marine skirmish. Still, Smoker shouldn't have opened fire unless he thought…

Zeff looks up instinctively and sees the telltale flag waving in the strong wind. "Who the hell put the Jolly Roger up already?"

He never does get to find out which idiot's head he should kick in because just then Straw Hat pulls his arms back in and crashes down onto the deck with Gin headfirst, with more force than a normal human could possibly survive. The former Krieg pirate hits the floorboards so hard that Zeff is sure Straw Hat has killed him.

Luffy cringes and shakes his arms out, looking back at the motionless body behind him. "Oi, Gin; are you mad at me?"

"Should I be?" Miraculously, the man stands up with no more than a couple of scratches from the debris and looks no worse for the wear; if anything, he looks better than he did the last time they saw him. "Thanks for pulling me out of the water; I owe you one."

Nami and Usopp, who had seen the whole thing from the beginning, stare at the destroyed entrance at the bottom of the mountain with identical shell-shocked expressions. "He's a monster."

Gin looks at his empty hands and then glances back at the bottom of the mountain as if remembering something, and he catches Smoker watching him with an unreadable expression. Maybe he's just too far away, because he can't place the emotion on his face, and soon the Marine ship disappears from sight as they reach the summit of the mountain.

He gets a new distraction in the form of Zeff's leg catching him across the face, and Gin hits the ground for the second time in less than a minute. He looks up at the chef's livid expression and realizes that he should have expected this.

"You idiot, if you ever pull a stupid stunt like that again, I'll hand you over to the Marines myself." He understands that Zeff isn't talking about how he recklessly destroyed the entrance to Reverse Mountain to stop the Marines (and nearly got himself drowned just now), but about his little vanishing act from two weeks ago.

Luffy watches them from the Baratie's figurehead; it seems to be a habit of his to also find the most inconvenient, unsafe perch on any ship and claim the spot as his own. "Crewmates can't just wander off wherever they want without the captain's permission, Gin."

Gin is taken aback, and he looks from one man to the other as though trying to figure them out. Finally, with a quiet, almost undecided grin on his face, he nods and says, "Very well…captain."

* * *

_Maybe we didn't believe it back then, and we definitely haven't believed in it recently, but I know that as much as you want me to accept any one of these passing crews offers and head to the Grand Line, I just can't. It isn't just my dream, but ours. If I go, then I can't imagine anyone I would rather go with than my own crew (those morons we're forced to call cooks) and my own captain._

_You._

_What I want to say is…_

Zeff's vision blurs as he remembered the last line, and the Grand Line welcomes him back with a cool spray of mist and refracted light in the early morning sun, and the excited, awestruck shouts of his men and Straw Hat's crew fill the vast, endless blue expanse of sky and sea before them.

_Let's go make our dream come true together?_

 


	7. Smoke on the Water

For the better part of an hour, the two pirate ships sit on the Grand Line's waters in a solitary peace that the Baratie's owner says is merely an isolated occurrence. The only things up ahead are deadly seas, deadlier enemies, and more dangers than any of them could conceive of in a thousand years, and that is just the region of this ocean that they call the Paradise. While this makes all of the newly turned pirates blanch and mutter to each other quietly, the Straw Hat Pirate only seems to gain vitality from Zeff's warnings, and he cannot sit still long enough for anyone's liking, namely his own crewmates who are finding him to be quite the handful already. The boy bounces around from Baratie to Merry and back, swinging himself up onto the rigging and shouting out at the beautiful, wide horizon stretching out before them.

"We're here; guys, look at it! This is the greatest ocean route in the world! And we're finally  _here_!"

Gin watches as his burning fervor seems to awaken a similar sort of excitement in the others; he wants to join in as well, but the only feeling this ocean inspires is fear. His heart is racing, his senses as keen as knives, and he wants nothing more than to flee (this ship, this ocean, everything).

Instead, he reaches for a little tranquility.

* * *

Zeff notices the faint, familiar click of the lighter before anything else, and he knows immediately that it's not going to be him, that this particular habit of Sanji's has gone with him forever (it's simply a coincidence). But then the smell matches his memories, and he realizes that this is  _Sanji's_  brand, and he wonders how they found out his favored cigarettes anyway.

He wants to go seek out the smoker on the ship, somewhere among the crowd of pirates cracking open a barrel of rum to share on the mid-morning sea route, but he falls too soon to the wave of memories crashing over his head.

Zeff remembers a little boy.

_Maybe the child was going to tire of being treated as such from the beginning. Children were always trying to grow up too fast, right? But he had never seen the harm in playfully teasing him about his short height and soft features, because he was inwardly relieved at how the boy had put on weight after their eighty-five days, and how the wasted, grey gauntness had rounded out again with a true, rosy health (and growth spurts would come around soon enough too). He deserved to look like a child, to think like one, to be treated like one and live like one._

_Sanji didn't seem to share his sentiments._

_"Stop calling me a little eggplant, you damn geezer!"_

_It wasn't long before the stupid brat had slipped his first box of cigarettes in. Bartered off some lowlife bastard who had no scruples about providing little children with tobacco and booze (luckily, his boy had never developed the vice of drunkenness), Sanji spent countless hours practicing with his precious stash at the stern of the ship, hidden away behind some empty produce crates and coughing up enough smoke to power one of those old Marine steamships that they had once used on the Calm Belts. When Zeff caught him and scolded him for it, the boy had simply kept his head down and renewed his efforts stubbornly. His determination paid off when he managed to keep one in his mouth without hacking up a lung; he still remembered Sanji's grinning mouth around the cigarette, how pale and soft the smoke looked against his flush-red cheeks, and the exact sound of his pride as he declared, "See, I'm all grown up now, right?"_

_Zeff spent that whole night sitting by his bedside after he had fallen asleep, thinking, "but why would you want to do that, baby Eggplant?"_

The smoke rises up from the main deck like an echo of that question, and he still doesn't know the answer.

* * *

This is Gin's peace; at the age of four, he has his last memory of familiarity and safety in the form of a vague silhouette made of delicate perfume and cigarette smoke. The perfume fades with time; the smell of ashes doesn't. It's the first thing he sought out after Krieg gave him a freedom that he could never have thought possible in all his years. The pirate captain doesn't say anything about his unobtrusive but perpetual habit, even if it makes his lip curl in disgust. He doesn't have a rebellious bone in his body, though, and the habit becomes nothing more than smoke drifting in the chilly ocean breeze much too infrequent and early in the mornings to irritate the Don.

He isn't the only one with the habit, but he is the only one in constant contact with their captain, and so he yields to Krieg's will as always because if there is anyone deserving of undying loyalty it is this man. While the others flaunt their vices like proud banners wherever they want, Gin suppresses them and becomes the man who will die many times for his captain (except for the one time that he doesn't).

Most of his cigarettes are snuffed out in dim, out-of-the-way back alleys in the dead hour before dawn, but at the Baratie he has a new memory.

_Sanji's smile is like a breaking dawn. He feels that he should be chastised for it at any moment now, but he remembers that Don Krieg is a hundred miles away on a dying ship, and he allows himself to indulge, just for a moment. Damn good, isn't it? the young man says, and Gin cannot help but agree as he shovels food into his mouth, wiping at tears that won't stop coming._

_When he has finally composed himself the plate sits empty between them and they rest their backs against the ship's railing, staring up at the sky together while the world drifts by in inches and gaps. The agony of starvation passes with it, and he only notices the cook's irritation because Sanji's hand upsets the tray with a clatter before he rescues it from tumbling into the water._

_"Shit, I must have dropped them when the damn geezer kicked me into the table today."_

_Gin blinks; he says this as though it were an everyday occurrence instead of just being utterly bizarre. A moment later he knows what Sanji was looking for and failed to find. He doesn't look eager to go back inside the restaurant yet, but the nervous tap-tap of his polished shoes against the floorboards makes his craving obvious._

_Before the thought has fully formed in his mind, Gin fishes out his current pack and is pleased to find that there is one cigarette remaining. Just enough._

_"Here." The way Sanji is looking at him makes him flinch; that isn't an emotion that he's ever seen focused anywhere in his direction before. He makes the cook take the cigarette before he loses his nerve and looks away._

_"Thank you," Sanji smiles again, hesitantly rolling it around in his fingers. "But it's your last one."_

_"I can get more later," he shrugs, turning around to face the open waters behind the restaurant. Krieg would be thrilled to see him come back sans cigarettes, anyway. "And you didn't look ready to deal with them back in there."_

_"Not at all; the old man would probably send me back out to wait on tables again without them for the rest of the shift." Sanji lights up with a reverent air, savoring the taste in his mouth before letting his breath out in a thin stream of smoke. "You're a lifesaver."_

_That's practically absurd coming from the man who just saved his life, but he nods anyway and lets his gaze rest idle on the rocking waves, for once reveling in the emptiness of the hour and freedom from responsibilities. That's why he almost jumps out of his skin when Sanji takes a quick drag from the cigarette before leaning over and popping it into Gin's mouth. The cook laughs up a cloud of smoke at his shell-shocked expression and warns him not to drop it._

_"Last cigarettes are meant to be shared, you know."_

_It bubbles up inside his chest with the hot smoke, and Gin gives a chuckle that blossoms into full out laughter, and Sanji looks more pleased than when he scarfed down his cooking and called it the best meal he'd ever had. "There'll be other cigarettes, idiot."_

_Sanji's eyes glint with mischief. "True, but never like this one."_

_They pass the moments taking drags from the cigarette in turns, coming up with more and more ridiculous ways of passing it between the two and of blowing elaborate patterns in the brisk sea air with the smoke. By the time Zeff finds them, only the smoldering stub remains on the deck underfoot, and the cook and the pirate are basking in the golden glow of the horizon, shoulder to shoulder and more content than either of them had expected._

_Gin has had his fill to eat in more ways than he deserves, and he knows that he will pay back for this; he always has._

_…but he never realized what it would cost him._

* * *

It happens in increments, or perhaps just in pieces, but one by one the others start to take notice of the smoke invading their senses, and even Straw Hat perceives the somber mood as they all quiet down. He settles in next to his crewmates by the Merry's figurehead, watching curiously as the cooks begin to gravitate toward the bow of the other ship. Everyone hovers at the edge, unable to muster up the courage to step inside the space where the smoke begins.

Zeff is the one who steps past them all and slowly, drifting, comes up to Gin's side at the railing. They stand in solidarity and without words share the memories of a young man who is the only link between them. The smoke envelops them and fills the morning air around the ships, the missing part of their crew, and then the others join them at the bow of the Baratie-on-the-sea and lose themselves in their own memories.

No one speaks for some time.

Gin breathes in, feeling the smoke burn pathways into his lungs like a brand; he should have waited a while before doing this, but the craving for a cigarette went beyond physical, and he could bear a little pain anyway. It will probably always hurt from now on, because it's Sanji filling his lungs and seeping into the wounds, sending splintering cracks all along the inside of them. He doesn't think he can ever separate the two again, but he doesn't want to.

It's this hunger that is almost enough to kill him.


	8. Seaworthy

Luffy ends up determining their first course after Reverse Mountain, and it is a blatant, shameless, unapologetic accident. By which they mean that he picks a fight with a whale, almost loses said fight with the whale, and then causes a landslide into the ocean that brings up waves large enough to capsize both ships if he didn't also have the luck of the devil that somehow saved them all from drowning right there and then.

When the Baratie settles on the choppy waves, drifting several kilometers away from view of land, Red Line or island, the Going Merry is nowhere in sight, and neither is Laboon.

"Oh my God, we're not dead," Bastion says, and then adds a quick prayer for his own assurance. Patty scoffs at the heaven-bound plea on his lips in his native tongue, though he secretly wonders if he'll be able to dig up his old beads from the hull's storage. A few prayers over it can't hurt, right?

Harkl and Carne are flat on their backs on the deck, staring wide-eyed into the great blue expanse above them like they can't remember having done anything else in their lives, like they were born to do this. After a few quiet minutes, amidst the muffled groans and fearful mutters of the Baratie's crew, Harkl finally croaks, "We're  _not_?"

Patty lets the others deal with the younger man's nervous breakdown and turns his attention to the pirate at the bow of the ship, back still facing them like he hasn't moved since they first entered the Grand Line. He is soaked to the bone, just like the rest of them, but he doesn't seem to care as he chews the uselessly damp cigarette in his mouth and stares out across the water silently.

"You're not shaking anymore."  _Shit,_  he panics,  _that sounds like I've been staring at him this whole time._ "I mean, we just got attacked by a giant whale; aren't you supposed to be scared of the Grand Line anyway?"

Gin looks at him out of the corner of his eye but if he finds his comment is out of place, he doesn't mention it. "Nicotine," he shrugs lazily, his expression as serene and calm as the sea is right now, and he looks out at the horizon for any sign that Luffy and his crew are still alive, too.

"…you know that thing's not lit anymore, right?" Patty wonders if he hit his head as hard as Harkl apparently did, from the cries of alarm coming from the other cooks crowding around the cook.

He falters and frowns at Patty, who merely crosses his arms and waits for his excuses with a smirk. "It  _was_  up until about five minutes ago, and it's more of the meaning behind it anyway. Like having a source of comfort even after it stops being comforting or something."

Patty watches his wild and agitated gestures and concludes that he  _did_  hit his head somewhere, but it wasn't the boat. "You're cracked."

"I'd like to see  _you_  try to come up with better." There is no anger behind his voice, and if he didn't know better he'd say that Gin is actually hiding a smile, so he decides to indulge in a good laugh with him. They stare at the soaked cigarette and try to find some more figures of speech to describe-justify-give-meaning to it. Before long the pair is doubled over laughing at "soggy virility" and there are actual tears rolling down Gin's cheeks and Patty knows that he will never look at a cigarette the same way again. They are interrupted in the middle of a fresh round of laughter by Zeff, who gives them a look that makes them sober up immediately and throw the cigarette overboard.

He has changed out of his chef's whites and into clothes more suited for the rough seas ahead, and he "politely suggests" that they all do the same because if they ever again settle down to reopen the restaurant, there is no way he'll let them parade around in front of the guests in the clothes that they drag all the way across the Grand Line. "A good wash can only do so much for your uniform, men, and frankly, I shouldn't even have to be explaining this crap to you idiots. You all understand the importance of your chef's whites, so I don't want to see a single uniform out of the kitchen anymore. Understood?"

They all nod fervently, even Gin who doesn't have a uniform, but he's afraid of the consequences of not agreeing with Zeff at this point. The captain then begins running down a list of additional rules aboard the new pirate ship, citing the consequences of not taking heed of his warnings. "Pay attention or pay with your lives…all of our lives. No one's actions exist in a vacuum; what you choose to do affects everyone on this ship, especially since we have no fixed location anymore."

He clears his throat and draws out a small glass orb fixed to a thin strap, drawing their attention to it while he explains exactly what it is. "Speaking of location, I need you all to remember this: the Log Pose is one of the most important tools we have on hand to cross the Grand Line. Now, about how it works-"

Bastion looks up from his seat at the bow of the ship and asks a hesitant question that is on all of their minds. "Boss, are we actually capable of making it that far?"

Everyone is quiet as Zeff crosses the deck with sure, deliberate steps until he is towering over Bastion with a dark, menacing air. "Bastion, if I didn't think one of you was capable, I would have kicked him off my ship before the hull was even finished. Now get your head out of your ass, all of you! You're the fighting cooks of the Baratie-on-the-sea, and more importantly now, you're  _my_  crew."

The tension in the air dissipates and they find themselves reassured of their decision to stay with Zeff through all of this, and so the cooks listen carefully to the rest of his discourse and watch him choose their first destination once the Log Pose picks up the nearest island's magnetic field while he explains the Grand Line's chaos and unusual climate patterns. They are sure to come across it soon enough, so he gives each of them a job in keeping the Baratie's course steady when they begin to set sail. None of them are actually new to working the sails, rigs, and lines on a ship and they quickly fall into line in their assigned responsibilities.

Before he leaves to chart their course on the map, the captain turns around and shoots them all an ominous look.  _"Don't you dare fucking embarrass me."_

If that isn't enough to convince them of their worth on the Grand Line, then he doesn't know what will.


	9. Zeff's Hummingbird

Two islands in, they still haven't found the Going Merry, and they're starting to get worried about Luffy and his crew.

"They could be dead," Donath mentions in passing as they drop the Baratie's anchor at the next stop (a spring island with such a vibrant, beautiful flora that it seems out of place among the string of hostile islands they have just passed through). He rolls his eyes at the horrified and offended glares that his crewmates shoot him. "Come on, that thing looked like it could have swallowed the Baratie, and Merry is only a fraction of her size. Then there's the matter of her captain…"

"Kid ain't too bright," Lalo Lalona agrees, fastening the front sails to the boon before dropping down onto the deck with a catlike agility that is almost surreal considering his broader frame. "Might'a provoked th' poor beast agin, or somethn'."

Patty gives them both a thump over the head and tells them that there is no way Luffy has just given up on a dream as crazy as the one that they're chasing. He is probably cruising around the Grand Line on a parallel course, like Zeff said. They were bound to come across him sooner or later. "Besides, idiots like him don't die easily."

Zeff has placed him and Bastion in charge of the ship while he is gone, leaving them only with the orders to be ready to set sail in the morning when the Log Pose has set. It's a task that is easier said than done, because as soon as he has left with Carne to accompany him, the pirate chefs all begin to prowl the decks restlessly and try their hardest to get on Patty's nerves. Not having constant rounds of customers is starting to get to them all, which is why Gin's leaving is like the door to their freedom being opened up.

"And where do you think you're going?" Patty scowls because even after several weeks of accompanying them long before they reached the Grand Line, he still flinches whenever they address him. Gin lights up a fresh cigarette and takes a drag before answering, an action that only brings Sanji to mind.

"Captain said to be ready to sail tomorrow; he said nothing about staying solely on the ship in the meanwhile, right?"

All of them share a nervous, lingering glance before jumping off the ship and into the water, to Gin's amusement and Patty's exasperation. The man growls and stalks off to lower one of the boats; he'll be damned if he is left stuck on the ship by himself, and there is no way he's swimming to shore when they're this far out in the water. "Fine, but if  _any_  of you isn't here when Zeff steps onto the deck, we're assuming you've resigned from the crew."

His threats are lost among the raucous shouts and cheers coming from the cooks in the water, who don't even bother to head to the shore but simply splash around and revel in their new freedom. By the time he searches around for Gin, he is marching up the sandy beach and into the forest growing at the edge of the island, ignoring the path that Zeff and Carne took into the small island city of Colibri.

Harkl shakes his head at Gin's retreating back and says in a sardonic tone, "you'd think he doesn't trust us, eh?"

Patty and Bastion say nothing in response, because Harkl may have just hit the nail on the head with his offhanded comment.

They'll see in the morning, at any rate.

* * *

Gin has only taken two steps into the tranquil woods for some much needed solitude when he feels it.

He frowns down at the child grabbing his leg and gently pries her off, setting her down where he hopes she came from and continuing on down his path. A few minutes later, that same weight latches on again, and this time, he glares at her enough to scare even the most hardened of his former opponents. It's the look that has frozen blood, that has shattered men's resolves, the look of the Demon-

It does nothing to frighten the little girl, who wraps herself tighter around his leg and babbles happily, drooling on his pants leg while she "talks". Gin grits his teeth and casts an unhappy glance at the murmuring village just on the other side of the treeline; he is not going to get any time to himself after all.

"Can't you just go over there? Don't your parents even care where you are?"

Smiley gives him a huge grin and rubs her face against his calf, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like "bunny".

"Not bunny," he snaps as he tries to peel her away (she's like a little leech, and he thinks that he might actually take some of his blood away with her). "Pirate. Now go away."

"P-pi…arr, matey!" Smiley looks pleased that she made the connection, and Gin wants to throw something in frustration (preferably her). His blood pressure is rising in distinct increments.

He can't even light a cigarette around her, for God's sake.

* * *

Zeff is starting to get a headache from this man's continuous drivel; he came here just to find a current map of the WhiskeyPeak route's area because if his hunch is right that is where he is bound to find Straw Hat Luffy and his crew. The store proprietor, however, is insistent on the fact that he also needs to purchase a guide to the Log Pose, two original maps of West Blue's Jhepo islands, and a set of chronometers, just for backup. Right.

He lets Carne deal with the panicked store owners after he kicks a hole into the front counter of the shop, placated by the promise that he'll get the map he wants, and nothing more (and  _sir, please calm down we cannot afford to pay for any more damages caused by your rampages_ ). Begrudgingly, the captain steps outside onto the front porch and looks out at the peaceful village they have come across. Colibri would be a popular, busy tourist destination, were it not on one of the most dangerous oceans in the world ( _no one_  vacations on the Grand Line).

It is definitely beautiful and quiet enough on its own, though, and as he watches a group of children playing in the sandy main street he remembers a past that he lived on an island just like this one, happy and peaceful, before his rebellious years led him out to sea. He doesn't regret it, of course; he never looked back, but it's nice to indulge in a moment's nostalgia for its own sake.

After Carne exits the mapmaker's shop, his intended purchase clutched triumphantly in his hand, Zeff turns around to head back to the ship early, and then he sees it.

His breath catches in his throat.

* * *

_The rescue comes after what feels like eternities, and all Zeff wants to close his eyes in relief and just sleep properly again, but he knows, after several brushes in the past with starvation, that this nightmare is far from over. They hook him up to an IV and pump him full of drugs that would fill an apothecary, possibly. He's well out of it at this point, so he might be exaggerating a bit._

_He can't see the boy at all in the chaos, and soon afterward they give him something that brings him blessed, uninterrupted sleep, putting all thoughts of his companion, their promises, and the All Blue out of his mind._

_They perform several surgeries and scramble to obtain antibiotic after antibiotic as the days drag on, because traumatic self-amputation of your own leg will do things like leave you with impaired nerve endings, jagged chunks of gangrenous flesh and bone, and infections so strong and complicated that your doctors are still struggling to figure out how to make sure you survive._

_Zeff lets them do their job and passes out again._

_The next time he wakes up, the doctors tell him that he is in a better, more stable condition; he would like to disagree with them and ask them to knock him out again, but he cannot work his tongue well enough to say something that might be considered the Common language. They are kind enough to take his garbled nonsense at face value and give the order to increase his pain killers and sedatives, and it gets him through the next twenty-four hours. Amazingly, he is recovering quickly enough that he can stay up for a couple of hours at a time, and then, before anyone can believe it, he has made it out of the woods, albeit severely undernourished and one leg short of a pair._

_They dedicate themselves full time to treating his starved body, continuing the slow introduction of nutrients via the IV and cautiously working him up to actual intake by mouth. He rejects the oral method a couple of times involuntarily, and in the moments when he is gagging and retching up nothing but bile over the basin that the nurse is holding up for him, he feels that he will never escape this hell or the empty, hollow that has settled itself in his body._

_It all could have been avoided if there was a ship on the sea that actually served people food, instead of sailing around to steal fucking necessities from them. His new dream is making a lot of fucking sense for one that has apparently never been thought of before._

_While he is reflecting on that and thinking about what a brilliant idea a restaurant on the sea is and why no one has thought to make one before him, he overhears the evening nurse who now delivers his food ( **actual food,** thank God, the heavens, and Davy Jones, even), talking to one of her colleagues about the poor little thing in the room at the end of the hall that they had been struggling to draw out of a coma._

_"All skin and bones, just like the gentleman over here, but we can't keep him awake long enough to get anything into him; he's on IV only. Oh, you haven't heard? They were both found off the coast of Miriapi, days away from any-"_

_Zeff gets one of his crazy, reckless ideas, and that night, he plans accordingly._

* * *

He has never seen a more surly expression on a child's face, but Smiley has certain taken the prize for it, surely. The little girl sits on her mother's lap while he tries to talk himself out of their home and the tea that he is offered in gratitude for making sure their daughter didn't do something worse than just wander right into a pirate's path (not that they know that he  _is_  one). Worse than pirates...like falling into a ditch, he presumes, or maybe drowning in the shallow water in the pond behind their home.

She has a habit of wandering off on her own, apparently.

While he dregs up enough patience to sit through one cup of tea with her parents, Smiley clambers up into his lap and pats his knee proudly, as though to claim him. "Arr, matey," she chirps.

Her parents look at her curiously, which makes Gin nervous enough with a toddler on his knee, and then they look at him, which sends his brain into a panic.

"I'm not a pirate," he chokes.

* * *

_Cardiac dysrhythmia, is the clean, sterile, medical term that they give it. He is suffering from an irregular heartbeat; he is having arrhythmias._

_No matter how they put it, this is slowly killing the boy._

_He is lying on the bed in the clutches of so many tubes and wires that it looks like he's been trapped in a web; his skin is almost translucent under the bright lights of the hospital room, and yet he still won't wake up. Zeff sinks into the chair at his bedside and rubs at the stub of his leg, willing away the screaming pain so that he can focus on the boy instead._

_"Come on, little Eggplant; you didn't fight this hard just to die here on a hospital bed in an island city where no one even knows your name."_

_He squeezes his hand as much as he dares to (it feels like glass and paper under his bigger, heavier hand) and tries not to let that scare him. "Hey, weren't you going to help me with my restaurant? I'm here, so where are you?"_

_The silence threatens to drown him._

**_"You promised!"_ **

_His harshest voice is still barely above a weak croak, but the boy's eyelids flutter, and he cracks an eye open to look at Zeff moodily. "I'm…not...dead…"_

_He certainly sounds like he's dying, but that doesn't even matter because his eye is open and he has managed a glint of that fighting spirit that captivated Zeff over four months ago on the Orbit. The pirate smiles, painful and shaking, and he cannot help but rest his forehead on the edge of the bed._

_"Idiot, you could give some sign that you're not sleeping. How long have you been awake?"_

_It takes him a long time to speak again, as though every word has to be gathered up in his chest, carried through the palpitations, and then scraped along his dry, thirsty throat until it reaches the tip of his tongue. "…I…'ve….all…n-night…."_

_Zeff is relieved; this means that those doctors had better start doing their damn jobs before the boy passes out again. Every waking moment is an opportunity that they can't let slip by. However, he is immediately drawn to another concern._

_"M-my chest… hurts," the boy whimpers, clutching the sheets in his right hand painfully, and the heart monitor begins mimicking his distress like a grossly simplified parody. What can it tell him of the panic in his mind, the confusion that is etched on his features, or the color of death as it creeps across a child's sunken, gaunt cheeks? He's not a doctor, anyway, so nothing on the screen even matters to him except the fact that the damn thing has to keep **going**. "What's…hap-hap…wrong with…me?"_

_"They call it cardiac arrhythmia, or an irregular heart rhythm," he says, deciding not to ever keep anything from him, if he can help it. "Your heart isn't beating the way it should, and you're not getting enough blood to your organs."_

_"Why?"_

_"Starvation, probably. You were weak enough to land in a coma when we first got here." He doesn't mention that his heart is likely to give out because his body is just so depleted of its energy; the boy seems to know already. He's an incredibly perceptive child like that. He simply stares at the irregular line on the screen and watches it hiccup and jump jaggedly from time to time, looking calmer than any child should have to be in the face of death. Zeff curses that godforsaken rock again and closes his eyes tiredly._

_The boy gives a little laugh that sounds like a sob, and the pirate's head snaps up. His hand is clutched over his hollow belly desperately. "…'m off…that rock and…I still c-can't…eat…"_

_Zeff sets his jaw and forces himself to move, holding his breath against the pain and settling himself on the bed before gathering him up in his arms carefully; he feels like bones and hollows…or like a bird. He takes the flask that he filled with a stolen water-and-glucose mixture and brings it up to his lips. "Take small, slow sips," he orders sternly; they'll need to set limits if they want this to **not**  end in a disaster. "I promise it will help."_

_When he sees the confusion in his wide eyes after the first taste, Zeff explains: "you feel a fluttering in your chest, right? Like a bird or something. Well, there's a bird that has the same heartbeat, and it's called a hummingbird. You ever heard of one of those?"_

_He shakes his head weakly._

_"No? They're one of the most beautiful birds in the entire world, and I'll take you to see them someday when we're better. But anyway, this bird…this tiny, **tiny**  little thing-" like you "-has to keep up his energy to take care of his heartbeat and keep his beautiful, strong little wings flapping (that's why it's called a hummingbird, you see? His wings flutter so fast that they make a wonderful humming sound), and he does that all with this."_

_He finishes by holding up the flask like it's an elixir, like he's stolen this ambrosia from the gods themselves._

_"It's s-sugar-water."_

_"It's food," Zeff corrects him, and he makes him take another sip. "This is how you get strong, like the hummingbird."_

_It takes him a while to notice that he's crying. Big, fat tears are rolling down his face, and some of the water dribbles out of his mouth as he begins to sob without making a sound. Zeff lowers the flask and waits patiently, until he manages in a wavering, cracking voice, "why are you so nice to me?"_

_There are a lot of things that he could say to the boy, and all of them would be completely true. But the one thing that keeps returning to the forefront of his mind is the restaurant and the All Blue. He simply says, "You saved my dreams," and that is the most honest answer that he can give._

_It is a while before the boy finds the strength to speak again. His hand clenches the front of Zeff's shirt, and he is trembling so violently that it manages to shake both of their emaciated frames. "I-I'll… get stronger…I promised…"_

_Zeff smiles and pulls him closer, resting his chin on top of the boy's head and tenderly ruffling his gossamer hair. "We'll both get stronger together, little hummingbird. We'll get stronger…Sanji."_

* * *

Patty and the others haven't caught a single glimpse of Zeff, Carne, or Gin coming up the path from the village, and it's two hours since they were due to set sail. They decide to trek up to Colibri themselves and find the bastards before it turns out that they've gotten involved in a civil war or something. Not that Colibri even has the population for an all-out war, but with their luck on the last two islands, they decide not to chance it.

It takes them all of three minutes to locate Gin, who is asleep on a hammock outside a cozy little cottage, limbs akimbo and a little girl sprawled over his face and sleeping just as contentedly. They have to take a moment to process this picture and reconcile it with their quiet, distant crewmate.

Harkl can't handle it and lets out a burst of laughter.  _"Ahahahaha…oh-God-ahahaha!"_

His laughter spreads among the rest like wildfire, waking Gin up with a start and almost sending the little girl flying off the hammock. He fumbles around until he's caught her safely in his arms, and then the girl starts  _crying_.

 _"You."_ Gin says it with more venom than he's ever put behind his swears, and the man stalks off toward the cottage with the toddler cradled gently in his arms, absolutely fuming all the while. They're ashamed of their outburst at first, but then the hilarity of the situation hits them again and they break out in a fresh round of laughter.

Patty smirks as he watches him pace around the backyard, bouncing the girl around in his arms until she's cooing and giggling and throwing her arms around his neck gleefully. This makes such perfect blackmail material; it's like Gin isn't even trying.

* * *

Zeff hasn't moved from the little picket fence separating the garden behind the house from the street, and Carne is wondering just what could have captured his captain's eye for so long that he hasn't even noticed the sun falling behind the horizon. It's just a regular garden, with some admittedly beautiful flora and plant life and a tasteful lack of garden gnomes (oh, never mind, there's one hiding in the shrubs by the property line). There's nothing eye-catching about it.

The store proprietor has come out and is watching them from the porch with a knowing smile. "You've spotted the birds, haven't you?"

"Birds?" Carne moves to Zeff's side and looks out into the garden again, keeping his eyes peeled in order to catch a glimpse of one. He doesn't need to look long; the birds are actually figurines, tucked away carefully in each corner of the garden. When his gaze sweeps across the yard again, he realizes there are at least fifty out there, and each one is as unique and beautiful as the next. "Did you make these?"

The man nods proudly. "Each and every one, out of my best wood and materials from the forest over here that supplies most of what we use on the island. I don't usually get anyone interested in them."

"If you want to sell them, then why don't you put them on a shelf in the store?" Carne asks, mentally calculating how much he could earn on those pieces. "What's the point of keeping them out here?"

His smile is cryptic and seems to be meant only for Zeff, who fixes a hard look on him and turns away from the garden. "Somehow, it's more likely that those who I really want to give them to find them anyway, so I don't think I need to change my strategies."

Zeff leans against the fence and tries to calm his impatient hummingbird heartbeat. He doesn't want to appear too eager. "How much for that one?"

* * *

The Baratie leaves the harbor several hours behind schedule, but since it's mostly the captain's fault no one says a word about it. Zeff doesn't look like he's in the mood for their crap right now anyway. Since they left Colibri he's had a pensive, quiet look on his face, and he keeps turning a little wooden figure around in his hands slowly, running his fingertips across the carved piece's grooved feathers. When they ask him what it is, he shrugs and says it's only an overpriced tourist souvenir, a mere trinket.

Later, they find it sitting in front of Sanji's urn in the main living space like a gift, or an offering: a little hummingbird figurine with shimmering feathers and a crimson red chest, perched delicately atop a vibrantly painted flower that stands upright on its on spiraling tendrils, the bird's beak dipping towards the blossom as though to lap up the nectar pooled in the clustered petals.

It looks like a masterpiece.


	10. Daylit Ghosts

The Baratie creaks with a new ghost in the morning and none of them can settle down enough to stay on the ship at the next port (a quick emergency run for rigging supplies), so they decide to keep a rotating watch of four at the docks at all times while the rest of the crew escapes the stifling atmosphere and stock up on whatever they're running low on.

Gin, surprisingly, offers to stay the entire time.

Zeff raises a brow but doesn't say anything about it; he leads his group of men toward the shipyards to see what they can do about the broken pulleys on the back sail and leaves the rest to do what they want.

This means that Harkl is free to unleash the full force of his brash, headstrong personality, i.e., he lapses into pestering and hounding Gin to come along.

"You don't have to stay on the ship the  _entire_  time," he says and tries to appeal to…whatever Gin's interests might be (it's difficult to tell, he generally keeps to himself most of the time), while Bastion, ever his constant voice of reason, puts each one down almost immediately. "Let's go out and get drunk ( _Harkl, it's seven in the morning_ ). We could go start a riot ( _I'm sure the captain would love to get chased off the island by a mob of angry pitchfork-wielding locals_ )…God damn, Bastion, I'm trying to think. Women! Everyone loves women, right? Men?"

Gin doesn't even blink at any of the suggestions. "Thanks, I'm good."

"Come on and let loose a little! You're always so…serious." Harkl does a striking impression of Gin's usual expression, which earns him a laugh from everyone except the man in question. "What are you going to do here all day by yourself? Sleep?"

He gives them a wry smirk and turns his back to them. "That's the plan. Now, if I could get to it?"

Harkl scowls. "Fine, be that way. You'll see how much you'll regret it later when we're weeks out at sea and you remember that you didn't take the chance to stretch your legs on dry, solid,  _wonderful_  land. Also, you're  _boring_."

"I'm heartbroken to hear that, Harkl. Have a nice day."

Bastion and the others shake their heads in amusement and follow him off the ship towards the main town plaza. "That was something else, wasn't it?"

"Shut up, bastards."

* * *

_The rope is almost too heavy for him to carry, but he bears the burden with Zeff all the way back to the docks. "This is big enough for the restaurant's sails, right?"_

_Zeff grins down at the little boy struggling next to him and switches his burden of lumber and supplies to his other arm, reaching over to help lighten his load a bit. "Yes, do you know which sail we're going to need that one for?"_

_Sanji huffs, red-faced and panting, and keeps the rope out of the man's reach ("I can do it, I can") before stumbling forward with renewed determination and energy. "The downwind one. We're gonna need a lot more. I think it's gonna be too much for you to handle, so I'll carry all of them back, don't worry."_

_Zeff chuckles; the child has a strong personality, but then again in his fresh, new perspective he often sees himself as an authoritative, superior power, the king of his own little world. It's refreshing to see that the goddamned rock didn't manage to wrench away all of his innocence. "Of course you will, little Eggplant."_

_His flushed face gets darker. "Oi, what's that name supposed to mean?"_

_"Nothing, nothing. Oh, here's our stop…"_

"-sir, we're at our first stop. Are you alright?"

Zeff blinks and notices Carne giving him a concerned expression, while Patty is already haggling with one of the merchants on the docks about the price of the hammering supplies, despite the fact that it's not what they came for.

He looks back up at the complex pulleys and ropes hanging overhead and hears the distant echo of a little boy's excited laugh though there isn't a child in sight. "…of course I'm fine! What are you both wasting time for? We're here for the damn rigging, nothing more! Get to it, idiots!"

_Zeff, look! I got the pulleys done right this time! Look, look! I did it!_

* * *

"Harkl, you've been pouting all day-"

He turns a glowering expression at the group. "I don't pout."

Bastion grins and gives him a light thump on the back. "Don't take it personally; he doesn't mean anything by it, I'm sure."

"I'm trying to be friendly and nice and include him in stuff, and he just-" Harkl waves his hands around in a dramatic fashion. "-he's  _him_ ,  _not_  friendly and  _not_  nice and  _doesn't_  want to be included in stuff."

He pauses to catch his breath. "What's  _wrong_  with him?"

Donath shrugs and looks down at the port stretching out below the hill they're on. The docks are a good walk away, and night is coming on fast and dark. "Not everyone has to like you, Harkl. Heck,  _I_  don't like you half the time."

"It's not about liking people, Donath," Harkl retorts grumpily. "It's about socializing and bonding as a crew. Sure, he helps out as much as everyone else (certainly does a lot more than you), but after that he just…I don't  _know_ , removes himself from the group, like he doesn't want to be a part of us. Do you think it's the cook thing?"

Donath stares openly for a good while. "…no, Harkl, I don't think it's the cook thing. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard-"

Bastion shakes his head and interrupts him. "No, no; I think he might be on to something here."

"You too? God, I know you're best friends and all, but  _still_."

Admittedly, the pair make up a pretty convincing argument about why Gin might be intimidated by the sea cook culture (not that Donath will ever concede their stupid points), but they soon turn towards other subjects, like how important it is to restock on the dry goods before they leave and if they'll ever get the chance to serve actual customers on this trip. They get so caught up in the conversation that they walk straight into trouble without realizing it.

* * *

The captain is swearing that he'll leave all of them behind if they can't get the rigging up by sundown and figure out what the hell happened to the last group that headed into town that morning. Since Lalo and Patty seem to have the rigging duty down for the most part, Carne directs his attention to the second order and tries to decide who he should send after the missing trio.

A quick head count reveals another problem.

Carne glances back furtively at Zeff, who's been in one of the foulest moods they've witnessed since they accidentally broke the ship's rudder back in East Blue during an underwater game of Capture the Chef's Hat. He doesn't seem to have noticed that they have yet  _another_  missing member.

"He didn't want to leave the ship earlier," he mutters nervously to himself and tries to make the missing crewmate's absence a little less noticeable. "What the hell are you up to, Gin?"

* * *

Being off the ship is definitely as refreshing and freeing as Harkl insisted earlier; Gin has no argument against that. No one in a right state would want to remain on the ship today (the "ghost", their grief, was just hanging too heavily around the Baratie this morning)…but that's exactly what it's come down to for Gin.

Still, something like that isn't about to make him hold back on these bastards, he promises himself as the men come into view. No one attacks his crew and gets off easily, especially while he can still fight.

He hauls the first man he can get his hands on off Bastion and slams him into the wall with a satisfying crack. Because he catches them off guard, it's easy to guard his right side and handle the gang of rogues by himself. Behind him he can hear the cooks rejoin the scuffle and moves faster to end this before they can get hurt. Last time he wasn't fast enough… _and look what happened to him._

The sharp gleam of a dagger flashes in the corner of his eye, and Gin mentally maps out the dark, twilight-edged field to determine if anyone's in the way.  _Harkl_. Before he can give himself time to think, he twists around and blocks the attacker only a few inches from Harkl's stunned face.

It doesn't occur to him until later that it was a very, very bad move, though the pain in his ribs is still just a low whisper of what's to come. At the moment it feels just like it has all week and luckily, he can keep fighting to his heart's content. Unluckily for the crew's attackers, Gin has a dark, nasty heart.

 _"Gin…Gin!_   _stop it,_   _you're going to kill them_."

He finds himself staring at three identical, wide-eyed expressions of disbelief (disbelief and fear, he thinks bitterly, of course). Their skittishness and silence makes them appear all the more honest. Gin could be considered honest too, in a different way. They've probably never seen the type of raw openness that he's showing right now.

"Right…sorry."

He forgot: not everyone is a monster like him.

The anger seems dull and unimportant now compared to the way that they're looking at him; it hurts…it  _hurts_  because maybe he was hoping that he could just pretend a little longer ( _if I don't get too close, if I just stay quiet, stay out of the way, maybe I can sneak just some more time_ ). And it hurts just hard enough to make him forget his side for a few steps until the world tilts weirdly to one side and it's all he can do to keep walking.

He hears voices around him ( _oh God, he's hurt_ ) and vaguely recognizes them as the cooks' voices ( _how long has he been hiding it?_ ), but nothing that they're saying ( _Gin, look at me; can you hear what I'm saying?_ ) makes any sense to him at all. Yes, he's hurt; crashing into solid stone headlong can do that to a person, though it had been worth the look on Smoker's face. How long? Well, that depends on how long they had been on the Grand Line already, give or take a couple of hours for the Laboon incident. He can hear what they're saying, of course, but actually trying to answer their questions is the problem.

It feels like he's drowning, and it's the funniest thing in the world to him because he's nowhere even near water.  _The sea's on the other side of the port,_  he thinks blearily before losing focus again.  _It probably doesn't matter anyway; all pirates die at sea._

Whether or not that actually holds true is something he doesn't get to find out because while the others seem to disappear from his plane of existence, someone else takes their place. Gin frowns up past the cooks and feels like he's going to pass out, not from pain but from…hunger?

His suit is neatly pressed, trim, and spotless, his bangs a bright shock of smoothly groomed hair, and in his mischievous curve of a mouth, a smoking dog-ended cigarette hangs like it had never been missing at all. Sanji grins down at him and balances a plate of steaming hot food in one of his hands. "Yo, eat up."


	11. Sanji's Kindness, Sanji's Cruelty

No _hisses dread all over his mind, but his heart has a stronger word, a word made of iron and steel that makes him sit up and sob his gratitude over a plate of hot, steaming fresh food._ Yes _._

 _Because how many times has he run this in circles over the past few weeks, going through the motions of the last days before That Day at the Baratie like it will ever change anything? It didn't, it doesn't, and it won't, but he still crawls through his mind and plays little memories over and over in an attempt to figure it all out. Just what, what,_ what _happened there?_

_Sanji's smile lights up the past, and though he has it memorized like a code Gin still revels in the simple pleasure of watching it dawn on his face like a sunrise. It can be a bleeding memory for all that he cares; he knows it is, actually, but it doesn't make his smile less bright._

_"Why did you save me?" he asks Sanji and wonders if his eyes back then convey the desperate pleading in his voice now. "You didn't have to be so kind; it would have been easier for you to forget about me. They must be angry at you now."_

_Sanji snorts, tossing the cigarette butt to the ship's deck and putting the smoldering end out with the heel of his shoe. "Don't be stupid; they're always angry at me. They hate me and I hate them."_

_He puts aggression into his words, but Gin can hear the lack of poison in his voice and realizes that he doesn't mean it as much as he thinks he does. Most people never do._

_"Besides," the cook continues with a wry grin and kicks his legs out, stretching out into a comfortable recline that edges into Gin's space brazenly. "I'm not a kind person, so get those stupid ideas out of your head. If you ac-"_

_Unable to believe this is coming out of his savior's mouth, he has to interrupt him. "You fed me when no one else would. Me, a bastard on the wrong side of the law…" A sorry excuse for a human._

_This time, Sanji laughs; it's not especially happy but it's genuine. "Gin, if you think that anyone on this ship…look, cooking is my main love, and I'm not boasting when I say I'm worth my salt as a cook of the sea. I am, and the others are honestly not too shabby themselves."_

_He pauses and furrows his brow. "…most of the time. Anyway, we're cooks, but the one thing you can't forget about the Baratie is that first and foremost, we're crooks. I'm a '_ corsair's' _son and will be until the day I die. Pirates, you know, are not good people."_

_Gin dares to take a glance at him and is relieved that he is smiling, however grimly. "Do you really believe that?"_

_"Yeah, I do. I smoke like hell itself and curse with the worst of them. I can kick the shit out of anyone that crosses me and I treat my enemies and friends the same way: swift and rude. Sometimes I like picking fights with Patty and Carne because I feel like it, and I owe the owner of this place more than what my life's worth. But that's kind of the pirate way of life, isn't it?"_

_"…I guess it is," he chuckles, thinking back on his own debt to Don Krieg and wondering how Sanji got stuck in a place like this. Was it gambling, vice, or just another type of salvation? "I'm grateful for the food, at any rate. It was the best meal I've ever had."_

_The way Sanji smiles is so sincere that he begins to realize that it's true; he's never had a meal like this before. Honesty is not his strong suit, and it doesn't fit in a profession like his, but right now it doesn't seem to matter. Not when Sanji is giving him every reason to forget._

_The cook looks away and fixes his gaze at the banners fluttering against the bright sky. His voice loses that fabricated edge again. "I guess my redeeming quality is the ability to sympathize with the hungry. Go figure."_

_"It's not a bad thing, not at all."_

_Gin dearly wishes that he could take it all back. It is two days, one betrayal, and a multitude of raw emotions later, and the cook is gasping and wheezing underneath his merciless grip while he hefts his weighted tonfa over his head like an executioner's ax. He can see the flash of realization in those blue eyes (Sanji seems to recognize death when it approaches him), and remembers the feeling of knowing the end all over again._

_He cannot do it._

_Krieg looks at him like the disappointment that he is, and he wants to say,_ I know, I hate myself too.  _He doesn't regret letting Sanji live, though; this is the only way he can think of repaying such kindness in his lifetime. Now, whether Gin lives or dies, at least he has his peace._

_Sanji stops screaming at him when he throws his mask away on the Don's orders, and he is glad that tears have blurred his vision to the point where he doesn't have to see disappointment on his face, too. He wishes he could take that back with the rest._

_And then this is where his memory really begins to blend with reality, or whatever he is supposed to call this limbo in which he turns everything over in his head once again (how many times has he done this), and dissects the end like he can actually save him. It is an exercise in futility; Sanji always dies in his memories and even though his mind is screaming at him to react differently (notice the signs, make the first move, stop him), it ends the same._

_It ends with Gin standing before the MH5, resolved to die for his failure and unwavering in the face of death. He deserves it, after all._

_It ends with a hand on his arm, kind and warm, and Sanji's smile at his side when Gin looks his way out of the corner of his eye._ Gin, live _, he says._

 _It ends with a kind hand on his injured shoulder, wrenching it out of place and shoving him away with a force that sends him sprawling on the Baratie's shattered fin. He hits the boards hard enough to make his injuries scream, to make him black out, to steal those precious few moments that decide the conclusion of the story. It takes him seconds to regain consciousness but by then Sanji has closed the gap and left him (left everyone) behind; he doesn't know how he crossed the water but he found_ some _way because the MH5 never discharges, not completely._

_The poison gas stops escaping its casing when Sanji's foot slams down on it, crushing the vents closed and leaving it lying on the ground. Krieg's mask joins it in the next breath, and the Don growls furiously at his weapon being rendered useless like that. Sanji grins with some effort, tears streaming in trails down his scalded face; he hasn't managed to escape the gas entirely unscathed._

_He doesn't let that stop him, though, and he's ready for Krieg's spear with another powerful kick to stop the pirate's attack. Whether it's out of sheer stubbornness or something else, Sanji holds his own against the pirate captain and matches him, blow for blow, even as he is forced to stagger back to catch his breath as the battle goes on. He trembles with the effort but continues to fight just as ferociously as he did with Gin, if not more. For the very first time, Gin sees Krieg truly being forced to work for his battle, and it's hurting the Don's pride more than his injuries. Frustration and anger build up in his gleaming black gaze, and Gin thinks that maybe he will see the impossible today._

_He doesn't have time to feel conflicted. It seems that before the end, he never does. Instead, he sees his crewmates clamber up onto the broken deck and attack Sanji from behind, forcing him to defend himself from all sides. And he tries to at first, and he tries, but then there's a sharp cry and the cook is on his knees._

_"Sanji!" Gin struggles to sit up, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and sides, and he knows that Sanji needs his help but he realized it too late. That's how the memory goes, after all._

_Sanji is one of the most incredible fighters he has ever met, and sometimes now, he dares to think that he could have taken Don Krieg down alone. He's not entirely sure; it may be the fever talking. He could have, maybe. But in his condition, spitting blood from the poison gas, already battered and weak from his standoff with Pearl and Gin, and ambushed on all sides by the remnants of Krieg's great armada, he doesn't stand a chance. And Sanji realizes that, he knows by the way his eyes soften and he casts one final look back at the Baratie (at them)._

_He turns away with an air of finality, his expression looking like it was cut from stone, and then he_ fights _._

_In the end, they don't see how his bones were shattered or the blow that crushed his throat. They don't see the indignity he suffers at having his hands destroyed in front of him or the way he killed thirteen of them by smashing their skulls in, leaving his legs an unsalvageable wreck. No, Gin thinks as he stumbles toward the scene, soaking wet and wondering what Sanji used to cross the water if he didn't swim across, they were spared only to be given the aftermath. Krieg's harsh, triumphant laughter, the unusual somberness from his crew, and Sanji…_

_Gin feels something like lead in his chest, along his arteries and airways, lacing his heart until it stops, and falling heavily at the bottom of his lungs. He struggles and wheezes and chokes, and he can't breathe-_

He wakes up so quietly that it doesn't feel like a nightmare, if it  _was_  that. Forcing his tired, heavy eyelids to open, Gin finds himself in a dark, silent room punctuated only by the soft murmuring of the wind outside. It takes him a few minutes, but then he notices the black shapes scattered across the room and jerks wide awake. He sits up but stops midway through the motion when it brings a sharp pain into focus at his side.

_That's right, I made that injury worse earlier. Everyone probably knows by now, though._

Clutching his side and finding purchase for his feet on the cold wooden floor, Gin climbs out of the bed and looks around in confusion at the cooks sprawled on various surfaces of the room, from the chairs to the floor. He wonders what they are doing there; the restaurant had to have sleeping quarters for all of them, right? Why would they spend the night in here with him?

A thought flickers across his mind, one that he quickly discards as  _impossible, like they'd even care_. Suddenly he wants to be outside, and he escapes into the harsh, cold night air without a sound. The cooks continue sleeping soundly in the room behind him.

It's probably not a good idea for him to be out on the deck with a fever like his, but the cool air feels wonderful on his hot skin right now. Gin closes his eyes but doesn't dare let himself fall asleep again; he's afraid of finding Sanji's dead eyes looking at him in his dreams. A pity his broken ribs didn't kill him…he thinks the guilt might be enough to.

"You were dreaming about it, weren't you?"

Gin's eyes snap open and he glances around wildly in the dark, panic rising in his chest when he can't find the source of the voice. If he didn't recognize him, he might just have tried to attack.

"I wouldn't try anything in your condition." Zeff's eyes are dark and somber in the weak lamplight as he sets the lantern down on the railing post behind them. "Unless you really are trying to get yourself killed."

"…no," Gin lies, leaning against the railing to keep upright. "I wasn't."

He doesn't know which statement he is responding to. Zeff doesn't ask about it either, for which he is grateful.

"It's alright," the old pirate captain says after a long pause while they listen to the wind croon overheard. It sounds just like the night that they burned Sanji, and it shows on both of their faces.

Gin wonders if Zeff will say aloud what they're secretly thinking about. Zeff nods as though he can read his mind, and his smile doesn't reach his eyes when he speaks next.

"I dreamt of it, too."


End file.
